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Numerical simulation of microneedles' insertion into

skin
a a a
X. Q. Kong , P. Zhou & C. W. Wu
a
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Department of
Engineering Mechanics , Dalian, 116023, P.R. China
Published online: 08 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: X. Q. Kong , P. Zhou & C. W. Wu (2011) Numerical simulation of microneedles' insertion into skin,
Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 14:9, 827-835, DOI: 10.1080/10255842.2010.497144

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 Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering
Vol. 14, No. 9, September 2011, 827–835

Numerical simulation of microneedles’ insertion into skin

X.Q. Kong, P. Zhou and C.W. Wu*
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Dalian 116023, P.R. China
(Received 16 July 2009; final version received 26 May 2010)

Microneedles have recently received much attention as a novel way for transdermal drug delivery. In this paper, a numerical
simulation of the insertion process of the microneedle into human skin is reported using the finite element method.
A multilayer skin model consisting of the stratum corneum, dermis and underlying hypodermis has been developed. The
effective stress failure criterion has been coupled with the element deletion technique to predict the complete insertion
process. The numerical results show a good agreement with the reported experimental data for the deformation and failure of
the skin and the insertion force. The influences of the mechanical properties of the skin and the microneedle geometry
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Cruz] at 23:34 11 January 2015

(e.g. tip area, wall angle and wall thickness) on the insertion force are discussed. The numerical results are helpful for the
optimum design of the microneedles for the transdermal drug delivery system.
Keywords: drug delivery; microneedle; skin; numerical simulation; insertion force

1. Introduction fabrication and drug delivery was given by Prausnitz

Microneedles, fabricated with various materials, such as (2004).
metal (Davis et al. 2005), silicon (Griss and Stemme 2003) Although a large variety of microneedle designs and
and polymer (Moon and Seung 2003), are micron- applications have been reported in recent years, the
dimensioned needles that can easily pierce into human mechanics of microneedle insertion into the skin of a
skin. They are fabricated as either solid (Hashmi et al. human subject has received limited attention. The design
1995) or hollow needles (Lin and Pisano 1999; Stoeber objective of microneedles is that they can be inserted into
and Liepmann 2000), and have recently been applied in the human skin safely without breaking or buckling for
biomedical field for such applications as the blood glucose painless and minimal invasive treatment. The insertion
measurement, transdermal delivery, skin therapy and so on force is one of the key parameters estimated for the safe
(Lin et al. 2001; Matriano et al. 2002; Mcallister et al. use of microneedles. When the insertion force is too large,
2003; Mukeree et al. 2003). Although microneedles may microneedles can break or buckle before being totally
not totally replace the traditional needles, they do possess inserted into the skin. A better understanding of the
some capabilities that the traditional needles do not and insertion process and the relationship between the
show a great advantage in the biomedical field. microneedle geometry and the insertion force is helpful
Most of the recent studies of microneedles have to the microneedle optimisation design. Davis et al. (2004)
focused on their fabrication methods and drug delivery measured and predicted the force necessary to insert a
capabilities. Henry et al. (1998) created microneedles tapered, hollow metal microneedle into human skin using
based on the principles of needle injection and transdermal a force –displacement measurement device, giving an
drug delivery. Park et al. (2005) demonstrated that approximately linear dependence of the insertion force
biodegradable polymer microneedles possess the mech- on the cross area of the needle tip. In their study, tapered
anical robustness and sharpness to penetrate into human hollow metal microneedles were used having a tip radius
skin in vitro. Brazzle et al. (1998) created hollow metal of 30– 80 mm, wall thickness of 5– 58 mm and constant
microneedles for localised drug delivery. McAllister length of 720 mm. The insertion force for a single
(2000) used a single glass microneedle to pierce into the microneedle was found to vary from 0.08 to 3.04 N.
skin of diabetic hairless rats in vivo to deliver insulin. Following the approach of Davis et al. (2004), Park (2004)
Sivamani et al. (2005) tested hollow microneedles measured the force required to insert tapered and solid
mounted on a standard 1-ml syringe for the delivery of microneedles into the skin of human subjects. The
methyl nicotinate to human subjects giving a promising insertion forces of 0.8 and 1.29 N were measured for
result. A more extensive overview on microneedle microneedles having tip diameters of 55 and 115 mm,

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1025-5842 print/ISSN 1476-8259 online
q 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/10255842.2010.497144
http://www.informaworld.com
 828 X.Q. Kong et al.

respectively. Recently, Roxhed et al. (2007) have developed

and fabricated a type of ultra-sharp hollow microneedles
which gave an insertion force less than 10 mN.
All of the experiments mentioned above have studied
the insertion properties of microneedles into human skin.
However, no efficient numerical model has been set up for
predicting the insertion process of a microneedle into
human skin. In this paper, a nonlinear finite element
method based on the ABAQUS/Explicit code is used to
investigate the complete insertion process of the micro-
needle into skin. A multilayered skin model consisting of
three layers, stratum corneum, dermis and hypodermis, is Figure 1. Schematic view of the cross section of human skin.
proposed. With the multilayered microneedle-skin model,
the skin deformation and failure involved in the insertion skin as a homogeneous material without considering the
process, as well as the influences of several parameters
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individual contributions of the epidermis, dermis and

(e.g. mechanical properties of skin, wall angle, tip area and hypodermis. Actually, different layers have rather different
wall thickness of the microneedle) on the insertion force of mechanical properties.
the microneedle, have been studied. The finite element
analysis provides some new insights into the insertion
process of the microneedle into human skin.
2.2 Numerical modelling of microneedle – skin
interaction
2. Materials and methods 2.2.1 Basic assumptions and mechanical properties of
the skin
2.1 Mechanical properties of human skin
The geometrical parameters of the microneedles analysed
2.1.1 Skin anatomy
in the present study are partially based on the experimental
Human skin, the largest organ of the human body, is a design proposed by Davis et al. (2004). All the
highly organised and stratified structure consisting mainly microneedles used in this numerical modelling are tapered.
of three layers: epidermis that provides waterproofing The length of the tapered microneedles is of the same order
serves as a barrier to infection; dermis that serves as a as the thickness of the skin layer. To get a better insight
location for the appendages of skin and hypodermis into the overall insertion process, the mechanical
(subcutaneous adipose layer) called the basement mem- behaviour of different skin layers should be studied first.
brane (Figure 1). The outermost layer, or epidermis, is the In the current numerical simulation, a multilayer finite
stratum corneum with a thickness about 10 –20 mm. The element model of skin including stratum corneum, dermis
second layer of the skin is dermis, a dense fibro-elastic and hypodermis is developed. Stratum corneum, the top
connective tissue layer of thickness 1– 4 mm (Odland layer of the epidermis, has Young’s modulus over 100
1991). The third layer, subcutaneous fat or hypodermis, is times higher than the dermis (Van Duzee 1978), forming a
composed of loose fatty connective tissue which is protective shield covering the underlying viable epider-
connected to the superficial dermis. Its thickness varies mis. Thus, stratum corneum is the main barrier for needle
considerably over the surface of the body and between insertion. Since other parts of the epidermis are much
individuals (Norlén 1999). softer than the stratum corneum, we only consider the
effect of the stratum corneum for epidermis. Therefore, we
treated the skin as a simplified model consisting of stratum
2.1.2 Mechanical properties corneum, dermis and hypodermis. Table 1 lists the
The mechanical behaviour of human skin was studied for a mechanical properties of different layers of the skin used
long time (Payne 1991; Holzapfel 2001; Hendriks et al. in the numerical simulations. Although experiments need
2004). Strictly speaking, human skin generally is a to be conducted to determine the exact mechanical failure
heterogeneous, anisotropic and nonlinear viscoelastic properties of the lower layers of the epidermis, actually,
material which is under (residual) stress in vivo (Langer the omission of the lower layers of the epidermis has only
1978). The mechanical properties of human skin vary with a little effect on the simulation results. Firstly, the lower
skin type, age, hydration, body location and between layers of the epidermis have a little effect on the whole
persons (Reihsner et al. 1995). Most of the previous deformation of the skin model due to its small thickness
models developed to simulate the behaviour of skin under (nearly two orders less than the dermis, Magnenat-
various mechanical loadings (Tong and Fung 1976; Thalmann et al. 2002). In addition, this simulation is
Shoemaker et al. 1986; Bischoff et al. 2000) treat the focused on the insertion force required for puncturing the
 Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering 829

Table 1. Mechanical properties of human skin. modulus E of 3.4 £ 104 Pa (Gerling and Thomas 2005).
Numerical simulation shows that this linear elastic
Density r Failure stress s Friction
simplicity of the hypodermis gives only a 1.5% higher
(kg/m3) (MPa) coefficient m
prediction for the insertion force than neo-Hookean model.
Stratum corneum 1300a 13 – 44b 0.42c
Dermis 1200d 7.3e 0.42c
Hypodermis 971e – –
a
2.2.2 Numerical analysis model
Gardner and Briggs (2001).
b
Hendriks et al. (2006). Figure 2 shows the geometry and boundary conditions
c
Elkhyat et al. (2004). used in our numerical simulation. The numerical
d
Mehta and Wong (1973).
e
Duck (1990).
simulations for each case have been performed using
axisymmetric mesh. The following study shows that the
wall thickness of a tapered hollow microneedle having
skin surface. Obviously, the stratum corneum (the first
30 –60 mm tip radius has no significant effect on the
layer of the skin) which has a largest stiffness and forms a
insertion force. This suggests that the skin is insufficiently
protective shield for covering the underlying layers of the
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flexible to dimple into the hollow needle lumen and

epidermis is the main barrier for needle insertion.
deforms only around the outer walls, which is in
For simplicity and due to the lack of detailed
accordance with the experiment observation by Davis
mechanical data at the microscopic length scale, all the
et al. (2004). Here, we establish a tapered solid
three layers were modelled as hyperelastic or elastic
microneedle model with almost the same geometrical
materials. For stratum corneum, we adopted the uniaxial
parameters as the microneedle used in the insertion
tensile test data provided by Wildnauer et al. (1971), who
experiment of Davis et al. (2004), as shown in Figure 2.
determined the mechanical parameters, ultimate breaking
All the microneedles used for the numerical simulation of
strength (failure stress) and elongation at fracture from the
insertion have a length of 720 mm. Although the studied
stress – strain characteristics of the human stratum
area of the skin can be infinite, a fairly large circle area
corneum conditioned in various physicochemical environ-
with a diameter w ¼ 50 mm is taken in the present study.
ments. We fitted the stress – strain curves obtained from
It is found that this size is big enough to avoid any effects
0 – 80% RH (relative humidity) conditioned samples
of the boundary on the penetration zone. The skin model
(Wildnauer et al. 1971) and found that the stratum
has been meshed with CAX4R elements corresponding to
corneum could be treated as an incompressible hyper-
four nodes (Hibbitt et al. 2005). The mesh is finer in the
elastic and isotropic solid described by the one-term Neo-
microneedle – skin contact zone to obtain a more accurate
Hookean strain energy function (Hibbitt et al. 2005):
numerical solution in the high stress and strain gradient
U ¼ C 10 ðI 1 2 3Þ; ð1Þ zone. The microneedle is modelled as a rigid body because
of the high modulus of the microneedle material (Davis
where the strain energy potential U is the strain energy et al. 2004).
stored in the material per unit of the reference volume as a On the basis of the experiment of Davis et al. (2004),
function of the strain and I1 is the first invariant of the the tapered microneedle is constrained to move along the
Finger strain tensor B. We obtained the stiffness C10 and
failure stress s to be 7.2 –26 and 13 –44 MPa, respectively,
depending on the relative humidity (Wildnauer et al.
1971). Likewise, based on the experiments of Hendriks
et al. (2006), the dermis can also be treated as an
incompressible, hyperelastic and isotropic continuum as
described by the strain-energy function given by Equation
(1). The parameter of hyperelastic material properties of
the dermis in Equation (1) is taken from Hendriks et al.
(2006): C10 ¼ 0.16 MPa. The values of the failure stress
for the dermis are chosen from the experimental data
reported by Duck (1990).
Owing to the insertion depth limit, the microneedle can
only puncture the stratum corneum and penetrate into the
upper surface of the dermis layer. The hypodermis layer is
not involved with failure and significant deformation. For
simplicity, an elastic behaviour is considered for the
hypodermis with Poisson’s ratio y of 0.48 and Young’s Figure 2. Definition of the boundary conditions.
 830 X.Q. Kong et al.

insertion direction (normal to the skin surface) with a Therefore, von Mises stress failure criterion was used in
constant velocity of 1.1 mm/s. Surface to surface contact the present simulation. The material model coupled with
between the microneedle tip and the skin is analysed using the failure criterion is applied to all the elements in the skin
the kinematic contact algorithm. Inserting the microneedle model mesh. When the effective stress in an element near
into skin is similar to the perforation problems (i.e. the needle tip reaches the specified failure criterion, the
penetrating impact of projectile) and cutting events (i.e. element will be identified and eliminated from the mesh.
orthogonal rubber cutting), which are both characterised The numerical analysis is based on elastic or
by material failure, large deformations and an evolving hyperelastic and isotropic material model for each layer
contact surface between a penetrator and target. As far as of the skin. However, the whole skin is heterogeneous
we know, most of the previous numerical studies of the and anisotropic due to the multilayered structure. In our
perforation, penetration and cutting process have been simulation, the velocity for the insertion of the
performed using the commercial explicit Lagrangian microneedle into the skin is kept constant at 1.1 mm/s.
codes, such as LS-DYNA or ABAQUS, and employing the The whole insertion process is quasi-static. Furthermore,
element deletion algorithm to study the failure and to our knowledge about the skin mechanics, the
separation of material (Borvik et al. 2002; Yan and assumption of isotropic, elastic or hyperelastic and
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Strenkowski 2006; Arias et al. 2008; Rusinek et al. 2008; initially unstressed solid body for the skin layers is a
Iqbal et al. 2010). Element deletion is one of the most successful engineering simplification (Fung 1967; Allaire
commonly available methods in commercial FE-software et al. 1977; Bischoff et al. 2000; Shergold and Fleck 2004).
for the modelling of material failure and separation due to
fracturing. In the element deletion method, element
volume will be removed when the necessary condition
3. Results and discussions
for element deletion is met during the deformation. Thus,
it might induce physical inaccuracy compared with the 3.1 Deformation of skin
element splitting method. However, the element deletion Figure 3(a)–(c) shows the whole insertion process. The
method can overcome the stress concentration at the microneedle, having a tip radius of 30 mm, a length of
cracked surface by deleting cracked elements during 720 mm and a wall angle of 608, is pressed against the vertical
simulations, so that it can prevent overestimation of stress surface of the skin with a constant speed of 1.1 mm/s. As the
and strain values (Alsos 2004). In addition, if sufficiently microneedle moves forward, some nodes are separated due
small elements are used, the effect of mesh size to the deletion of ‘dead’ elements from the skin mesh,
dependency can be reduced. The previous numerical allowing the microneedle to pierce into the skin.
simulations (Borvik et al. 2002; Arias et al. 2008; Rusinek Figure 3(d) – (f) shows the deformation of the skin
et al. 2008; Iqbal et al. 2010) have demonstrated the during the process of the microneedle insertion into the
accuracy and effectiveness of element deletion method. In skin corresponding to Figure 3(a) – (c). We find that the
this work, finite element simulation of the insertion skin surface is punctured when the microneedle moves
process of microneedle into the skin has also been carried forward 198 mm from the skin surface (denoted by d
out using the explicit finite element code, ABAQUS/Ex- below). Figure 3(d) (d ¼ 0) shows the non-deformation
plicit, combined with the element deletion algorithm. It is status (microneedle just starts to touch the skin surface).
well known that for the modelling of material failure and Figure 3(e) (d ¼ 152 mm) shows the skin deformation
separation, the element deletion should be controlled by a before puncture. Figure 3(f) (d ¼ 200 mm) displays the
local failure criterion, such as critical stress and strain. deformation after the microneedle punctures the surface
Since the hyperelastic models in ABAQUS/Explicit do not of the stratum corneum. The position of the needle
incorporate a material failure mechanism, we developed a penetrating into the skin (i.e. when the stratum corneum is
special user material subroutine with a von Mises stress punctured) is indicated with arrows (Figure 3(f)). As can
failure criterion to control the element deletion in skin be seen, the hole in the skin made by the microneedle has
model during the insertion process. Although there are a the same shape as the microneedle tip in the contact area.
number of failure models for structure materials, the most We also find that the skin deformation is basically in
commonly used ones are the maximum stress, maximum accordance with the experiment by Martanto et al. (2006)
shear stress and von Mises stress models. The von Mises who showed a histological cross section of a piece of skin
stress failure criterion was derived by associating the with a tapered microneedle.
distortion energy in a unit volume with the distortion The penetration mechanisms are different for
energy per unit volume in a tensile test specimen (Norton the penetrators with various shapes. As reported in the
1997). Yan and Strenkowski (2006) have demonstrated previous studies of the perforation and penetration
that the von Mises stress failure criterion is the most problems, a penetrator having a blunt tip would penetrate
suitable choice for modelling the failure and separation of into the target by plugging (removing the material in front
the hyperelastic rubber material in the cutting simulation. of its tip) while a sharp-tipped penetrator pushed
 Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering 831

Figure 4. Typical microneedle insertion force – displacement

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history obtained in this numerical simulation. The point of

insertion is identified by the sudden decrease in force.

used in our simulations has almost the same shape

parameters as the microneedle used by Davis et al. (2004)
in the insertion experiment: the microneedle tip radius is
40 mm, the length is 720 mm and the wall angle is 608. In
order to get a reasonable comparison between the theory
predictions and the experimental measurements, we find
that when the stiffness C10 ¼ 10 MPa and the failure stress
s ¼ 37 MPa for the stratum corneum, the simulation fits
best with the experimental observation. The values are in
the range of 7.2– 26 MPa for the stiffness of the stratum
corneum and in the range of 13 –44 MPa for the failure
stress (Wildnauer et al. 1971). The mechanical properties
Figure 3. Insertion process of the microneedle into skin.
(Stratum corneum: C10 ¼ 13 MPa, s ¼ 28 MPa, h1 ¼ 20 mm; of the dermis and the hypodermis adopted in the
Dermis: C10 ¼ 0.2 MPa, s ¼ 7 MPa, h2 ¼ 1.5 mm; Hypodermis: simulation are given in Table 1. The thickness of each
y ¼ 0.48, E ¼ 3.4 £ 104 Pa, h3 ¼ 1.0 mm). layer of skin is considered as the average value of human
body, for example, the stratum corneum is 20 mm, dermis
the material in front of the tip away laterally during the is 1.5 mm and hypodermis is 1 mm.
penetration process (Borvik et al. 2002; Shergold and Figure 4 shows that as the needle is pressed against the
Fleck 2005; Arias et al. 2008; Iqbal et al. 2010). The skin, the force increases with the needle displacement. Upon
tapered microneedle studied here is a common type of puncture, the force rapidly drops and then increases again
microneedles (Davis et al. 2004; Kim et al. 2004; Martanto when the needle is inserted deeper into the skin. The force at
et al. 2005; Fu and Huang 2007; Lu et al. 2007; Park et al. the inflection point is defined as the maximum force for
2007) and does not look to be as sharp as the ideal needle, insertion (referred to herein as insertion force). The
but instead has a flat tip. It can be seen from the behaviour of the microneedle force–displacement agrees
deformation of the skin as shown in Figure 3(d) –(f) that with the experimental observation (Davis et al. 2004).
similar to the blunt penetrator, the flat-tipped microneedle
passes through the tissue as the elements are deleted in front
of its blunt tip. In addition, it can be seen that while the 3.3 Effect of the stiffness and failure stress of the
microneedle passes through the tissue, its tapered sidewalls stratum corneum
also push the material away laterally.
It is well known that the mechanical properties of skin
(especially the stratum corneum) vary with age, hydration,
body location and between persons. For example, the
3.2 Force of insertion failure stress of the stratum corneum will increase with the
The general behaviour of the microneedle force – increase of age and with the decrease in relative humidity.
displacement history obtained in the numerical simulation Since the intact stratum corneum is the main barrier to
is shown in Figure 4. The tapered solid microneedle model insertion, here we mainly investigate the effect of the
 832 X.Q. Kong et al.

mechanical properties of the stratum corneum on the hypodermis are kept constant(h 2 ¼ 1.5 mm and
insertion force. h3 ¼ 1.0 mm, respectively). The insertion force is
A series of 2D finite element simulations are carried increased by 9.2% from about 0.316 to 0.345 N as the
out using the proposed model with different stiffness and thickness of stratum corneum increases from 10 to 30 mm.
failure stresses. Figure 5 shows the effect of stiffness Moreover, Figure 6 suggests a roughly linear dependence
coefficient C10 for several failure stresses s on the of the insertion force on the stratum corneum thickness.
predicted insertion force. It is found that the failure stress Figures 7 and 8 show that the predicted insertion forces
is an important factor to affect the insertion performance. increase with the increase in dermis thickness and the
For example, when the stiffness coefficient of stratum hypodermis thickness, respectively. Although the insertion
corneum is kept constant at 7.2 MPa, the insertion force is force involved in both experiments (Davis et al. 2004; Park
decreased by 87% as the failure stress decreases from 39 to 2004; Roxhed et al. 2007) and our numerical simulation is
13 MPa. Generally speaking, the failure stress of the defined as the force to puncture the surface of the skin, the
stratum corneum for older people is much higher than that dermis and hypodermis still have a smaller effect on the
for an infant. Our simulation results can explain why it insertion force. As mentioned earlier, Owing to the small
becomes more difficult to insert a needle into the skin of thickness and stiffness of the lower layers of the epidermis,
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aged people than into an infant. It is also found that, when omission of them in the simulation will not cause a big
the failure stress is 13 MPa, as the stiffness coefficient C10 difference of the insertion force. For example, if we
increases from 7.2 to 26 MPa, the insertion force decreases increase the dermis thickness by only 50 mm, the change in
from about 0.044 to 0.02 N. This effect becomes more insertion force is negligible.
significant with the increase in failure stress.

3.5 Effect of the microneedle tip area

3.4 Effect of the thickness of different skin layers The experiments of Davis et al. (2004) showed an
The thickness of each skin layer varies with age, sex, race approximately linear dependence of the insertion force on
and anatomic region of the individual. The experimental the tip area, A, of the tapered hollow microneedle (defined
measurements of Holbrook and Odland (1974) showed as A ¼ pr2t , where rt is the outer radius of the hollow
that the stratum corneum was 1.4 times thicker for the microneedle tip). Here, we study the effect of the tip area
flexor forearm than for the abdomen and back of the of a tapered solid microneedle on the insertion force. For
human body. To investigate the effect of the skin layer the tapered solid microneedle, we also define the tip area
thickness on the insertion force, a series of 2D as A ¼ pr2t , where rt is the radius of the solid microneedle
axisymmetric finite element analyses were carried out tip (see the inset in Figure 9). Our numerical simulations
using the multilayered skin model. The thickness of the also give a similar linear relation between the insertion
stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the skin) h1 force and the tip area, as shown in Figure 9. The smaller the
ranges generally between 10 and 20 mm. Figure 6 shows tip area of the tapered microneedle, the lower the insertion
the insertion force vs. different stratum corneum force. The contact stress (the contact force per unit contact
thicknesses, while the thicknesses of the dermis and the area) on the skin is inversely proportional to the contact
area over which the force is applied. As the tip area

Figure 5. Effect of stiffness coefficient C10 for several failure Figure 6. Effect of stratum corneum thickness on the predicted
stresses s on the predicted insertion force. insertion force.
 Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering 833
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Figure 7. Effect of dermis thickness on the predicted insertion

force. Figure 9. Effect of microneedle tip area on the predicted
insertion force.
decreases, the contact stress increases. This gives a
lower insertion force required for microneedle insertion.
force decreases. As the wall angles increased from 408 to
708, the predicted force decreases very quickly. However
3.6 Effect of the microneedle wall angle for wall angles larger than 708, the predicted force reduces
The wall angle a indicated in the inset of Figure 10 for the slightly. The numerical simulations show that besides the
tapered microneedle as discussed in Sections 3.1 –3.5 is tip area, wall angle is another critical parameter to be
608 based on the experiment of Davis et al. (2004). considered for the design and fabrication of a microneedle.
Obviously, the insertion force of the microneedle on
human skin is related to the tapered microneedle wall
angle. However, the insertion experiments mentioned 3.7 Effect of the microneedle wall thickness
above (Davis et al. 2004; Park 2004; Roxhed et al. 2007) All the tapered microneedles discussed above are solid
did not take this effect into account. Here, we study the ones. As for a hollow microneedle, the experiments of
relationship between the insertion force and the wall angle Davis et al. (2004) showed that the insertion force is
of a tapered microneedle. Generally, the wall angle of the almost independent of the wall thickness. To verify this, a
reported tapered microneedles is about 60 –808 (Davis et al. series of 2D finite element simulations were carried out
2004; Kim et al. 2004; Park 2004; Martanto et al. 2005; Fu using microneedles with different wall thicknesses
and Huang 2007; Lu et al. 2007). We consider five (indicated as t in the inset of Figure 11). We consider
different wall angles: a ¼ 50, 60, 70, 80 and 908. Figure 10 here the following three different wall thicknesses: 3, 15
shows that the wall angle has a significant effect on the and 30 mm, when the tip radii are 30 and 60 mm. The finite
insertion force. As the wall angle increases, the insertion

Figure 8. Effect of hypodermis thickness on the predicted Figure 10. Effect of hollow microneedle wall angle on
insertion force. predicted insertion force.
 834 X.Q. Kong et al.

But for hollow microneedles with a small tip diameter, the

wall thickness has almost no effect on the insertion force.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (90816025, 10972050 and 10721062).

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