Enhancing the performance of laboratory centrifuges with carbon fiber rotors

摘要

Centrifuges have multiple uses in medicine and in laboratories, most notably to separate substances such as blood plasma and serums. A centrifuge's rotors hold sample containers. Centrifugal forces equaling 25,000 times the force of gravity act on rotors and samples at speeds of 20,000 rpm. Unlike present conventional solutions (rotors made of special aluminum alloys), the load-bearing structures of the lightweight rotors presented here are made of carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP). The complex rotor and mold geometries are selective laser sintered. Given the fibers' extremely high load-bearing capacity, lightweight rotors manufactured with this novel technology set new standards for weight, stability and service life compared to current concepts. Moreover, this can reduce the warm-up time typical for aluminum rotors by at least fifty percent.