Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: B, page: 1623. Adviser: Ross Shegog. Includes bibliographical references.

Background Tube-feeding or nutritional support is a therapy for people who can’t get enough nutrition by eating or drinking. You may need it if you have difficulty swallowing, loss of appetite, are severely malnourished or have inability to absorb nutrients through your digestive system. There are several diagnoses associated with tube-feeding, depending on the persons diagnose and users state the user can be tied to the tube-feeding equipment from 3 to 18 hours a day. In Sweden there are around 1500-3000 adults in need of tube-feeding outside the hospitals.   Method This report is made by Cindy Sjöblom and is an individual student’s work. The project is her dissertation and final project at the two year Masters program Advanced Product Design at Umeå Institute of Design. The project has been executed during 20 weeks the spring 2015. The project is based on the design process which includes the following phases; Research & Analysing, Ideation & Concept’s and Detailing & Visualization. The Research & Analysis phase has included; Product analysis, user interviews & observations, market outlook, anatomical knowledge, problem listing and opportunity findings. The Ideation & Concept’s phase has included; Inspiration, persona creation, creative workshop, sketching, concepts creation, mock-up building, user testing & feedback. The Detailing & Visualization phase has included; 3D modelling, moodboard creation, sketching, final model building, photo shooting, video recording, documentation, presentation and a poster and exhibition stand at Umeå Institute of Design and at Semcon, Gothenburg. Result Tubie is an ambulatory tube-feeding system to facilitate an active everyday life for people in need of enteral nutrition. Tubie consists out of six parts; A nutrition pump and a wireless charging station, a nutrition bag and an external tubing, a wearable waist band and an application for a smart device to be able to control the pump. Unlike traditional enteral nutritions systems, Tubie is designed with a focus on the users in a home environment and their need for a more active lifestyle and discreet usage in social environments. Tubie is simply discreet due to its wearable features that allows the user to wear it underneath the clothing as well as control the pump via a smart device with an adaptable pre-alarm that sounds like any other text message or ring tone.

The performance evaluation and parametric studies of an Inertance Tube Pulse Tube Refrigerator (IPTR) are performed for different length-to-diameter ratios, with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package FLUENT. The integrated model consists of individual models of the components, namely, the compressor, compressor cooler, regenerator, cold heat exchanger, pulse tube, warm heat exchanger, inertance tube and the reservoir. The formulation consists of the governing equations expressing the conservation of mass, momentum and energy with axi-symmetry assumption and relations for the variable thermophysical properties of the working medium and the regenerator matrix, and friction factor and heat transfer coefficients in oscillatory flows. The local thermal non-equilibrium of the gas and the matrix is taken into account for the modeling of heat exchangers and the regenerator which are treated as porous zones. In addition, the wall thickness of the components is also accounted for. Dynamic meshing is used to model the compressor zone. The heat interaction between pulse tube wall and the oscillating gas, leading to surface heat pumping, is quantified. The axial heat conduction is found to reduce the overall performance. The thermal non-equilibrium results in a higher cold heat exchanger temperature due to inefficiencies. The dynamic characteristics of pulse tube are analyzed by introducing a time constant. The study is extended to other types of PTRs, namely, the Orifice type Pulse Tube Refrigerator (OPTR), Double Inlet type Pulse Tube Refrigerator (DIPTR) and a PTR with parallel combination of inertance tube and orifice (OIPTR). The focus of the second phase of analysis is the pulse tube region. The oscillatory flow and temperature fields in an open-ended pipe driven by a time-wise sinusoidally varying pressure at one end and subjected to an ambient-to-cryogenic temperature difference across the ends, is numerically studied both with and without the inclusion of buoyancy effects. Conjugate effects arising out of the interaction of oscillatory flow with heat conduction in the pipe wall are taken into account by considering a finite thickness wall with an insulated exterior surface. Parametric studies are conducted with frequencies in the range 5-15 Hz for an end-to-end temperature difference of 200 K. As the pressure amplitude increases, the temperature difference between the wall and the fluid decreases due to mixing at the cold end. The pressure amplitude and the frequency have negligible effect on the time averaged Nusselt number. The effect of buoyancy is studied for hot side up and cold side up configurations. It is found that the time averaged Nusselt number does not change significantly with orientation or Rayleigh number. Sharp changes in Nusselt number and velocity profiles and an increase in energy transfer through solid and gas were observed when natural convection comes into play with hot end placed down. Cooldown experiments are conducted on a preliminary experimental setup. Comparison of the numerical and experimental cooldown curves disclosed a number of areas where improvement is required, primarily the leakage past the piston and the design of the heat exchangers. The setup is being improved to bring out a second and improved version for attaining the lower cold heat exchanger temperature.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The study of fluidelastic instability in tube arrays has been ongoing for four decades. Although much research has been conducted, a full understanding of the mechanisms involved is still not available. Designers of cross-flow heat exchangers must depend on experience and empirical data from laboratory studies. As new designs are developed, which differ from these experimental facilities, there is an increased risk of failure due to fluidelastic instability. An experimental program was conducted to examine fluidelastic instability in inline and rotated square finned tube arrays. Three arrays of each geometry type were studied; two with serrated, helically wound finned tubes of different fin densities, and the third, a bare tube which had the same base diameter as the finned tubes. The tube pitch was kept constant to reduce the number of test sections required under this investigation. As a result, the bare tube array has a larger tube pitch ratio than that of previous researchers. The finned tubes under consideration were commercial fmned tubes of a type typically used in the fossil and process industries. The addition of fins to tubes in heat exchangers enhances heat transfer due to the increased surface area and the turbulence produced by the flow moving over the fins. The resulting flow pattern/distribution due to the fins is therefore much more complicated than in bare tube arrays. Previous research has shown that an effective diameter of a finned tube is useful in the prediction of vortex shedding. This concept is used to compare the finned tube results with the existing bare tube array guidelines for fluidelastic instability. All of the tube arrays in the present study have the same tube pitch, and have been scaled to have the same mass ratio. Results for the rotated square arrays show that the use of an effective diameter is beneficial in the scaling of fluidelastic instability and the finned tube results are found to fit within the scatter of the existing data for fluidelastic instability. For in-line square arrays, the results indicate that fins significantly increase the stability threshold. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

No / There are well-recognised complications associated with malposition of nasogastric (NG) tubes. In 2011 the UK National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) published an alert regarding their insertion and position confirmation. This alert also identified the expected radiology standards for both image acquisition and reporting. This was a retrospective review of referrals over a six-month period within a multi-site NHS Trust. A consecutive sampling approach was used and radiology reports where the text included the terms “NG tube”, “nasogastric” or “feeding” were included. Data were collected from the radiology information system and NG tube visibility and image quality were confirmed by two independent reviewers. 1137 examinations demonstrated an NG tube, of which 68.3% were performed to check tube position. There was statistically significant correlation between lower radiation exposure and non-visualisation (Fishers exact test, p < 0.001). The number of examinations with higher exposure index (EI) in the NG check cohort suggests that the radiographer increased the exposure to improve visualization (x2 = 2.846; 95% CI; p = 0.046), although the utility of this is unproven. Malplaced tubes were demonstrated either in the respiratory tract (1.8%) or proximal gastrointestinal tract (8.6%) as a result of insufficient length introduced. The prompt acquisition and reporting of radiographs is essential to reduce the risk of NG tube complications. Respiratory tract misplacement rates were in line with the published literature, but this study does raise concern regarding the number of tubes located in the proximal GI tract. Radiology's responsibility in accurate and effective reporting of medical interventions is significant.

published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Master / Master of Public Health

No description available.