XTRUDE: A Process‐Informed Framework for High‐Fidelity Analysis of Hydrogel Extrusion

ABSTRACT Reliable extrusion of viscoelastic hydrogels is crucial for technologies ranging from 3D (bio)printing to injectable therapeutics, yet current methods to characterize extrusion performance fail to mimic key processing conditions. Consequently, extrusion performance cannot be precisely predicted or controlled, particularly for thermosensitive, shear‐thinning, or heterogeneous hydrogels. Fundamentally, reliable extrusion emerges from interactions between intrinsic material properties and extrinsic processing conditions. Here, we introduce XTRUDE (e XT rusion R heology for U nderstanding and D efining E xtrudability), a process‐informed characterization platform that recapitulates geometry‐specific and time‐dependent conditions of the extrusion process by integrating in situ pressure sensing, controlled thermal conditions, and process‐relevant flow‐path geometries. XTRUDE reveals extrusion‐specific phenomena inaccessible with conventional methods, including the process‐dependent evolution of apparent rheological response and time‐local instabilities such as heterogeneity‐induced variations in extrudate morphology. Across monolithic, thermosensitive, and granular hydrogel formulations, XTRUDE establishes temporal pressure fluctuation patterns as quantitative metrics to unravel mechanisms underlying extrusion variability and correlate pressure profiles with extrudate morphology. By linking intrinsic rheology with the extrusion environment, XTRUDE provides a quantitative, mechanistic framework to benchmark extrudability across soft matter systems. This framework enables reliable formulation development, reduces failure during process translation, and offers a generalizable tool for extrusion‐based technologies in biofabrication, therapeutic delivery, and soft material manufacturing.