ABSTRACT
Objective To design a kind of bionic drag reduction needle and investigate its mechanism of painless injection. Methods Based on the analysis of mosquito's mouthpart structure, two types of bionic drag reduction injector needles, sawtooth needle and stripe needle, were designed with the painless feature as mosquito's blood-sucking action. The injection processes of normal smooth needle and two bionic drag reduction injector needles were simulated by using explicit kinetic software LS-DYNA, and analyzed the pain-relief mechanism of bionic drag reduction needles. Results Through contrast and analysis on the stress contour, internal energy curves and resistance curves of both the smooth needle and bionic needles during the puncturing process in soft tissue, the bionic needle was found to have obvious drag reduction effects. The drag reduction rate of the saw-tooth needle and stripe needle was 23.48% and 31.57%, respectively. Conclusions The bionic needles can minimize the friction resistance to achieve the painless injection by drag reduction, and its effect is determined by the structure and shape of the bionic needle.