AUTHOR=Etxeberria Leire , Aguilera Unai , Garcia de Madinabeitia Pablo , Saez Alberto , Zaldua Ane M. , Vilas-Vilela José L. , Fernández Luis , Llobera Andreu 

TITLE=Critical Study on the Tube-to-Chip Luer Slip Connectors

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medical Technology

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medical-technology/articles/10.3389/fmedt.2022.881930

DOI=10.3389/fmedt.2022.881930

ISSN=2673-3129

ABSTRACT=Luer slip is one of the gold standard for chip-to-world interface in microfluidics. They have outstanding mechanical and operational robustness in a broad range of applications using water and solvent-based liquids. Still, their main drawback is related to its size: they have relatively large dead volumes and require a significant footprint to assure a leak-free performance. Such aspects make challenging their integration in systems with high microchannel density. To date, there has been no geometrical optimization of the Luer slips to provide a solution to the mentioned drawbacks. This work aims to provide the rules towards downscaling of the Luer slips. To this effect, seven variations of the Luer slip male connectors and five variations of Luer slip female connectors have been designed and manufactured focusing on the reduction of the size connectors and minimization of the dead volumes. In all cases, female connectors have been developed to pair with the corresponding male connector. Characterization has been performed with a tailor-made test bench in which the closure force between male and female connectors has been varied between 7.9 to 55 N. For each applied closure force, the test bench allows liquid pressures to be tested between 0.5 - 2.0 bar. Finally, the analysis of a useful life determines the number of cycles that the connectors can withstand before leakage.