For some postsurgical patients and stroke victims, a drainage bag is used to discharge urine. As a small and intermittent amount of urine drains down the small tube, urine needs to travel around the confined air bubbles that occupy the tube. As the urine squeezes through the gap between the air and the tube’s wall, the air bubbles slowly rise and allow urine to travel downward. The resistance of such film flow is significant and the urine may become stagnant or backflow, resulting in painful pressure on a sensitive part of the body. Bacterial colonization of catheters is common. Each day of catheter use increases the chance for the appearance of bacteria in the urine by 5%. These infections can have serious consequences, including death. Infections can be prevented by maintaining a closed drainage system, keeping high infection control standards and by preventing backflow from the catheter bag. To prevent the backflow from the catheter bag in a closed drainage system will require the improvement of liquid flow through closed tubes in the presence of confined bubbles. This paper demonstrates the use of a tube with a superhydrophobic coating together with either angular cross section, embedded thin fins, or a spiral thread in order to improve the drainage under the aforementioned situations. Due to the superhydrophobic coating, the liquid will tend to stay away from the tube’s surface and because of the angular geometry or other geometric modifications, liquid will not occupy these corner areas. As a result, liquid will tend to move in the central region of the tube while the air counterflow will use the passage near the corners. The outcome was impressive, with bubbles no longer obstructing the flow. Thus, the combination of the effect of modified cross section geometry and the hydrophobic coating will prevent the confined bubble from obstructing liquid flow in tubes. The applications to the improvement of urinary catheters design are discussed in this paper.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Design Of Medical Devices Conference Abstracts
Better Catheter Design With Improved Liquid Flow Through Tubes
Tsung-chow Su
Tsung-chow Su
Florida Atlantic University
Search for other works by this author on:
Tan Ta
Florida Atlantic University
Tsung-chow Su
Florida Atlantic University
J. Med. Devices. Jun 2011, 5(2): 027502 (1 pages)
Published Online: May 27, 2011
Article history
Online:
May 27, 2011
Published:
May 27, 2011
Citation
Ta, T., and Su, T. (May 27, 2011). "Better Catheter Design With Improved Liquid Flow Through Tubes." ASME. J. Med. Devices. June 2011; 5(2): 027502. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.3587100
Download citation file:
7,195
Views
Get Email Alerts
Cited By
Fatigue Analysis of Nitinol Peripheral Artery Stents Under Complex Loads
J. Med. Devices (March 2025)
Related Articles
Introduction to Bioengineering
Appl. Mech. Rev (March,2002)
Dropwise Condensation Modeling Suitable for Superhydrophobic Surfaces
J. Heat Transfer (August,2011)
Contact Angle Variation on a Copper Surface Treated With Self-Assembled Monolayer (SAM) of N-octadecyl Mercaptan
J. Heat Transfer (August,2011)
Related Chapters
A Computational Framework for Antibiofouling System Design
Advances in Computers and Information in Engineering Research, Volume 2
Protein Secondary Structure Prediction with Hydrophobicity and Hydrophobic Moment
Intelligent Engineering Systems Through Artificial Neural Networks, Volume 17
Modeling in Biomedical Engineering
Intelligent Engineering Systems through Artificial Neural Networks, Volume 16