Investigation of Impulse Jet Dispersion Mechanism of Needle-Free Drug Delivery Device

Impulse jet injector creates a high-speed liquid microjet through a small orifice that is used for drug injection into the skin. A requisite amount of dosage is administered at a disseminable depth into the skin sample. One of the key aspects of dispersion investigations is to study the flow mechanics of jet propagation inside the target. The injection of the drug into soft materials like polyacrylamide gel slabs is examined in order to understand the process for drug dispersion and uptake. High-speed imaging is used to capture the rapid dynamics of the fluorescent liquid injected into the ballistic polyacrylamide gel slab. A 2D numerical simulation is performed to confirm the jet impact pressure and velocity, and it is found to be in good agreement with experimental results. Understanding physics of jet penetration through polyacrylamide gels allows one to deduce jet injection into skin targets. The findings demonstrate that drug distribution into the target was effective.