What is a Fluidic Management System?
Fluidic systems and solutions provide the means to transfer fluids entering, flowing throughout, and exiting an application. The types of fluids involved vary extensively by industry and purpose, but often include air, blood, chemicals, reagents, sterilizing cleaners, waste, or water. The design, material selection, and integrated components of a fluidic system are highly dependent upon the type of fluid that they are carrying, as well as the devices that they are connected to. Piedmont CMG has the expertise to help engineers identify the optimal materials, components, and design needed to create a fluidics solution for OEMs developing new applications. Let’s take a look at some of the fluidic system solutions that CMG is capable of providing to product design engineers who are developing the fluidic management systems within their device.
How are Tubing Assemblies used in a Fluidic Management System?
Tubing assemblies are the most commonly used component of successful fluidic systems due to their low cost, ease of use, variety of materials, and simplicity of design. Piedmont CMG supports many OEMs across a wide spectrum of industries with value-added tubing assemblies that can be chemically inert for the reagents or specimen on the sample side of an instrument, or soft tubing assemblies for the wash and waste side of an instrument. We can help you select the tubing material that best fits your needs – whether that’s a tube that can withstand harsh chemicals, high pressure, and extreme temperatures, or provide improved flexibility and low moisture absorption.
Flanged Tubing Assemblies
One of the most important aspects for designing any tubing assembly – the end of the tube – is one that Piedmont CMG has taken to a whole new level. To provide the leak-free seal that is required by today’s leading diagnostic and laboratory equipment, a flange at the end of the tube is truly the best solution. A flange is a projecting flat rim, like a collar, which is heat-formed at the desired end of a segment of tubing. Flanges make certain that fluid flowing through the tubing does not get the opportunity to come in contact with any other materials. CMG’s proprietary FormFit flanges are carefully designed to fit in any port, with precise tolerances on diameter and wall thickness that are consistent and repeatable. Our unique FormFit flanges give us unrivaled accuracy and flexibility of design, yet our proprietary technology ensures that they are quickly manufactured in production level quantities.
Connection Fittings for Flanged Tubing Assemblies
After selecting the tubing materials and flanged endings, the next step in designing a fluidic management system is to figure out how all of the components are going to be connected. Here again, Piedmont CMG has the experience and technology to guide customers to success. We provide a wide range of connection fittings in different sizes and materials to allow easy, quick, and secure connections between tubing, manifolds, pumps, valves, sensors, switches, and various other connection points. Just as the tubing 
material is an important functional selection, so too is the connection fitting material. We commonly provide fittings made of PEEK, PFA, PTFE, ETFE, polycarbonate, polypropylene, stainless steel, and many more. These tube connection fittings are often paired with other hardware components – including O-rings, ferrules, and washers – to provide a sub-assembly that prevents any leaking or sample carryover by ensuring a reliable seal that can be unscrewed and reattached many times.
Tubing assemblies are an indispensable part of fluidic management systems, but CMG has much more to offer OEMs who are looking for a total fluidics solution. Be sure to check back soon to learn more about designing a fluidic management system with our other capabilities, including: labeling, tubing kits, fluidic manifolds (machined and diffusion bonded), bottle and cap assemblies (for water, waste, and reagents), as well as flow testing and other fluidic validation services.
