Medical Device Engineering Knowledge Base

Choosing Polymer Materials

A technical overview of polymer selection for medical tubing, including mechanical behavior, moisture, friction, clarity, bonding, processing, coextrusion, and compounding.

Pebax / PEBA

Learn how Pebax, a PEBA material family, is used in catheter shafts, multi-durometer transitions, coextrusion, and reinforced medical-tubing constructions.

PEEK

Understand PEEK material characteristics and its potential role in rigid tubing, composite, and reinforced catheter-shaft constructions.

Nylon 12

Learn how Nylon 12 characteristics—including stiffness, abrasion resistance, fatigue behavior, moisture uptake, and bondability—relate to medical tubing design.

Polyurethane

Understand segmented polyurethane behavior and how formulation, flexibility, toughness, coatings, bonding, and processing relate to medical tubing.

FEP & EFEP

Learn how melt-processable FEP and EFEP fluoropolymers differ and how surface, clarity, bonding, coextrusion, and multi-lumen considerations affect tubing use.

Hytrel

Understand Hytrel thermoplastic polyester elastomer behavior and its qualitative flexibility, stiffness, resilience, fatigue, chemical, and processing considerations.

Polyethylene & Polypropylene

Compare polyethylene and polypropylene for medical tubing, including flexibility, rigidity, friction, moisture, chemical, joining, and processing considerations.

PET Polyester

Learn how PET polyester stiffness, moisture behavior, clarity, forming, bonding, and filament use relate to medical tubing and reinforced constructions.

Polycarbonate

Understand polycarbonate rigidity, toughness, optical clarity, secondary processing, bonding, and overmolding considerations for medical tubing and components.

Custom Compounded Polymers

Learn how base resins and additives can be compounded to modify color, visibility, lubricity, stabilization, antimicrobial concepts, and intermediate material behavior.

French Sizing

Understanding French catheter sizing and its relationship to outside diameter in millimeters.

1 Fr = 1/3 mm OD

Multi-Lumen Tubing

Learn how multi-lumen catheter tubing combines multiple channels in one structure and how geometry, materials, liners, reinforcement, and tolerancing shape the design.

Medical Tubing Coextrusion

Understand medical tubing coextrusion, including concentric layers, cross-sectional material regions, multi-lumen configurations, and key material and process considerations.

Braided Catheter Tubing

Learn how braid reinforcement is incorporated into catheter tubing and how braid angle, pitch, pattern, filament geometry, and materials can influence shaft behavior.

Coil-Reinforced Catheter Tubing

Learn how helical coil reinforcement is incorporated into catheter tubing and how pitch, gap, filament geometry, materials, and placement can influence shaft behavior.

Braided vs. Coil-Reinforced Shafts

Compare braided and coil-reinforced catheter shaft construction, design variables, and qualitative considerations for torque, flexibility, kink, crush, and transitions.

PTFE-Lined Lumens

Learn how PTFE and ePTFE liners create low-friction inner catheter surfaces and how liners interact with multi-lumen tubing, reinforcement, bonding, and shaft materials.

Multi-Durometer Catheter Shafts

Learn how multi-durometer catheter shafts use material transitions to vary shaft behavior from proximal to distal regions and how they combine with reinforcement, liners, and lumens.

Catheter Tipping

Understand catheter tipping and distal tip forming, including RF forming, grinding, thermoforming, profile geometry, liner and reinforcement termination, and marker integration.

Steerable & Deflectable Catheters

Understand how pull wires, actuation lumens, distal anchors, reinforcement, liners, stiffness transitions, and controls interact in steerable catheter architecture.

Laser-Cut Hypotube

Learn how generic laser-cut patterns can change hypotube flexibility, rotational response, axial behavior, and regional shaft properties within a composite catheter architecture.

Medical Tubing Architecture

A technical overview of how tubing geometry, materials, lumens, reinforcement, liners, access features, joining, and secondary processing interact in medical device architecture.

Single-Lumen Tubing

Understand single-lumen medical tubing, including OD, ID, wall geometry, concentricity, material selection, and its role in tapered and reinforced constructions.

Tapered & Bump Tubing

Learn how tapered and bump tubing can vary OD, ID, wall, and cross-sectional geometry along single- and multi-lumen medical tubing.

Custom Profile Extrusions

Understand non-round and special-profile medical extrusions, including open channels, localized geometry, and combinations with coextrusion, multi-lumen, and tapered structures.

Extrusion Overjacketing

Learn how extrusion overjacketing forms a polymer layer around liners, reinforcement, wires, conductive elements, and other substrates.

High-Pressure Tubing

Review architectural considerations for pressure-bearing medical tubing, including wall geometry, materials, reinforcement, liners, composite construction, space, and flexibility.

Kink-Resistant Tubing

Understand how polymer, wall, braid, coil, filament geometry, bend, axial, and crush requirements influence lumen stability during tubing bend.

Polyimide in Catheter Assemblies

Learn how polyimide tubing may be incorporated as a liner or component in composite catheter assemblies, pull-wire paths, electrical isolation, and reinforced structures.

Ports, Skives & Luer Connections

Understand how ports, skives, and luer connections provide access to individual medical tubing lumens and how geometry, sealing, and assembly relationships are considered.

Flaring, Bonding & End Joining

Review medical tubing end forming and joining concepts, including step and tapered flares, butt and lap joints, fitting attachment, shaft transitions, compatibility, and evaluation.

Balloon Tubing

Understand balloon tubing as the extruded precursor for catheter balloon forming and how material, wall, diameter, compliance goals, and downstream forming are connected.

Secondary Processing Overview

An overview of secondary operations applied to medical tubing, including surface preparation, coatings, marking, openings, liners, reinforcement, forming, and component integration.

Hydrophilic Coatings

Learn how hydrophilic coatings interact with aqueous environments and how substrate, surface preparation, internal or external coverage, and verification shape coating design.

Surface Treatment & Bond Preparation

Understand plasma, corona, and chemical surface treatment concepts used to prepare medical tubing for bonding, lamination, coating, and multi-material construction.

FEP Liners

Learn how FEP may be used as an internal liner in single-lumen, multi-lumen, reinforced, and actuation-path catheter shaft constructions.

Hole Punching & Drilling

Understand mechanical punching, laser drilling, and hole forming used to create controlled access through single- and multi-lumen medical tubing walls.

Tubing Marking & Pad Printing

Learn how pad printing can apply circumferential or longitudinal lettering, numbering, graphics, size identification, and reference scales to medical tubing.

Longitudinal Reinforcement

Understand longitudinal filaments and wires used to influence axial or directional tubing behavior and their relationship to braid, coil, lumens, conductors, and tethers.

Actuation Cables & Pull Wires

Learn how single-strand wires and multi-strand cables may be routed through catheter lumens to transmit mechanical actuation within a complete shaft architecture.

Tube Forming & Shaping

Understand how extruded medical tubing may be thermally and mechanically formed into curves, elbows, twists, multiple bends, coils, and other three-dimensional shapes.

Tubing Overmolding

Learn how injection overmolding may create localized molded features around tubing, inserts, wires, ports, fittings, strain reliefs, and other components.

Catheter-Based Device Architecture

A technical overview of catheter-based device architecture, including shafts, lumens, liners, reinforcement, materials, distal features, components, connections, and secondary processing.

Guide Catheter Design

Understand guide catheter shaft construction, including liners, braid or coil reinforcement, materials, stiffness transitions, distal geometry, markers, and proximal interfaces.

Balloon Dilation Catheter Design

Learn how balloon dilation catheter systems combine a shaft, inflation pathway, balloon material and geometry, exchange architecture, attachment regions, and distal construction.

Ultrasound Catheter Design

Understand ultrasound catheter architecture at an engineering level, including shaft pathways, signal conductors, distal component integration, isolation, encapsulation, and connectors.

Embolic Protection Device Design

Review embolic protection device architecture as an engineering system combining a protection element, delivery and retrieval components, shafts, sheaths, materials, and integration.

ePTFE Covered Device Structures

Understand the architecture of ePTFE-covered stents and other device structures, including frames, membranes, covering geometry, joining, handling, and delivery-system relationships.

Medical Micro-Molding

Understand medical micro-molding as an integrated manufacturing system connecting miniaturized part geometry, materials, tooling, process control, handling, inspection, and production scale.

Materials & Rheology

Learn how melt viscosity, stability, rheology, moisture, thermal transitions, mechanical behavior, purity, PEEK, and bioresorbable polymers relate to medical micro-molding.

Automated Handling & Inspection

Understand why automated extraction, orientation, in-line vision inspection, transfer, and downstream presentation are integrated into micro-molded component process design.