Fundamental Investigation of Gas Transfer as a Function of Membrane Fiber Geometry and Blood Flow Direction in Oxygengators
Final Report Abstract
Membrane oxygenators are used in clinical practice to ensure extracorporeal gas exchange in the blood via microporous hollow fibers. The interaction between the fiber geometry and the hemodynamics in the artificial lung plays a central role. The aim of the project was to better understand this interaction and to quantify the relationship between flow direction and hollow fiber arrangement. For this purpose, fiber modules for an isolated analysis of the individual main flow directions (x,y,z) and fiber arrangements (90° and 24°) were developed. The gas transfer in the modules was measured with in-vitro blood tests. The correct choice of flow direction and fiber arrange-ment can increase the gas transfer by a factor of two. The 24°Y arrangement was identified as the optimal configuration. In parallel, a microscopic gas transfer model was created using 3D flow simulations and validated with the experiments. In the final step, a methodology was developed to extrapolate the microscopic simulations to a reduced-order model approach and to map the relationship between flow, fiber arrangement and gas transfer in in-silico models of oxygenators. The methods developed were published and the computer models were made available in an open repository for further use. Furthermore, the results were presented at three international scientific congresses. Future work will focus on the causes of the observed differences and their potential for optimizing membrane oxygenators.
Publications
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A Combined Numerical and Experimental Methodology to Investigate Flow Direction Dependent Gas Transfer in Artificial Lungs, 7th International Conference on Computational and Math-ematical Biomedical Engineering – CMBE2021 (2021), Mailand, Italien
J.M. Focke, K.P. Barbian, N. Gendron, J. Arens, M. & Neidlin, A.
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Investigation of Flow Direction Dependent Gas Transfer in Artificial Lungs, 48th ESAO Congress (2022), Krems, Österreich
J.M. Focke, K.P. Barbian, N. Gendron, U. Steinseifer, J. Arens & M. Neidlin
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Description of Direction Dependent Gas Transfer in Oxygenators, 49th ESAO Congress (2023), Bergamo, Italien
J.M. Focke, K.P. Barbian, N. Gendron, U. Steinseifer, J. Arens & M. Neidlin
