A CFD-aided experimental study on bending of micro glass pipettes

This paper presents a study on the temperature profile in the bending process of glass pipettes. To prevent undesirable deformation of the pipette at its bending section, such as kink and constriction, several factors influencing the bending quality are investigated, including the width and temperature of the heating element, heating and bending time. Taguchi method is used to study the key factors and to identify an optimal parameter combination. ANSYS is also employed to study the heat transfer and temperature distribution in the heating zone. It is concluded that the temperature distribution in the bending area is critical to the bending quality, and the width of the heating element decisively determines the temperature distribution.