Heat-transfer-based Biomedical Devices: Synergistic Numerical Simulations and Experimentation

Abstract

A synergistic multi-faceted investigation was performed to demonstrate an approach to the design of thermal-based medical devices. The synergism was achieved by the mutual interaction of numerical simulation and experimentation. Focus was directed to two independent but related biomedical devices. One of these is a non-invasive means of measuring the body core temperature under both steady state and transient circumstances. A realistic application of such a probe is the monitoring of the temperature of a patient undergoing surgery. The investigation of the novel temperature probe involved the interaction of a model of the relevant physical phenomena, which was implemented by numerical simulation. A near-congruent experimental apparatus was designed and fabricated with the view to validate the numerical results. The excellent agreement between these two independent methodologies lends strong support to the validity of the model and the utility of the results obtained. The other thermal-based device is therapeutic in that it is used to supply infusants into the human body under critical conditions. The infusants may be blood, saline, or a mixture of the two. Critical conditions demand high rates of infusion. Furthermore, the temperature of the infusants must be above a critical value to avoid the onset of hypothermia. The goal was to maximize the temperature of the delivered infusant while at the same time avoiding catastrophic events such as hemolysis which is a thermal-based necrosis of the red cells. The mutual supportive outcomes of the simulations and experiments provided strong evidence of the validity of the modeling and its numerical implementation.