🏆 Winner: Third Place – Best Video
The objective of this project is to optimize the geometry of a blood bag spike in order to lower the insertion force needed for it to puncture the membrane of a blood bag, resulting in efficient fluid flow to a patient.
Sponsored By: B. Braun Medical, Inc.
Team Members
Emma Angotti | Kathryn Chesnick | Brianna Frederick | Evan Lomis | Hector A Millan Cotto | Rui Yang | Zeshen You | | | | |
Project Poster
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Project Summary
Overview
Blood bags are used by medical professionals daily to transfuse blood to a patient during a variety of procedures. The fluid in blood bags is accessed by puncturing the membrane found in the bag’s port using a blood bag spike. The current B. Braun spike design is not optimal for certain users, as it requires a high insertion force to puncture and does not meet the ISO standard for length. Our project pertained to optimizing the geometry of the blood bag spike while meeting the ISO standard for these devices.
Objectives
Per the request from the sponsor, we built a finite element analysis (FEA) model in COMSOL Multiphysics software. The team’s goal was to minimize the insertion force needed to break the port’s membrane with the B. Braun spike and to also increase the length of the spike shaft so that it met current ISO standards.
Approach
Communication
-Weekly meetings with advisor and sponsor to receive feedback
Physical Testing
-Determined the bag port material with IR spectroscopy
-Tested the current insertion force of the spike with Instron machine (designed and printed port and spike fixation structures for testing)
-Measured the port dimensions up to an accuracy of 1000th of an inch
Modeling
-Created a finite element analysis (FEA) model in COMSOL Multiphysics software
-Tested various spike designs by quantifying and comparing the peak stress needed to break the port membrane in the FEA model
-Created a final prototype by combining the models that had the lowest measured peak stresses (and therefore, lowest insertion forces) for both side and front views
Outcomes
-Over the same amount of spike tip displacement, our current designs puncture at 0.17 and 0.54 GPa compared to the original 0.75 GPa von Mises Stress. Theoretically, the insertion force is expected to be reduced by at least 28%.
-Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to perform physical mechanical testing on the spike geometry models and final prototype, which would have determined the accuracy of our FEA model as well as provided another means for determining the effectiveness of our final prototype.