Title: Fluid structure interaction study on straight and undulated hollow fibre hemodialyser membranes

Authors: M.S. Sangeetha; A. Kandaswamy

Addresses: Department of Biomedical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore – 641004, Tamilnadu, India ' Industry Sponsored Research and Consultancy, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore – 641004, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: In hemodialysis therapy, the dialyser is subjected to blood flow continuously for several hours and is also being reused; the stress experienced by the fibres owing to blood flow is of utmost importance because it reflects on the mechanical stability of the membrane. It is tedious to study the stress experienced by an individual fibre in real-time; computer aided techniques enables to gain better insights about the load bearing capacity of the membrane. A finite-element strategy is implemented to study the effect of flow induced stress in hemodialyser membrane. A 3D model of the membrane was developed in straight and undulated (crimped) fibre orientations. Fluid structure interaction study was conducted to analyse the stress distribution due to varying blood flow. It is observed that in both the fibre orientations, the stress varies inversely with the blood flow rate. The effect of varying the length of the fibre, wall thickness and crimp frequency is also studied. From the analysis it is found that the crimped fibres experiences less stress compared to straight fibre. Such analysis aids to predict and evaluate the performance of the hemodialyser membrane.

Keywords: finite-element strategy; hemodialyser membrane; crimping; fluid structure interaction; computer aided techniques.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2020.107648

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2020 Vol.33 No.1, pp.11 - 27

Received: 28 Apr 2017
Accepted: 04 Sep 2017
Published online: 04 Jun 2020 *

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