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PIEZOELECTRIC PROBES AND THEIR CAPACITY TO MONITOR TIME VARYING VISCOSITY

Real-time, bedside observation of patient clotting is essential in various surgeries in the operating room (OR), but specifically during cardiac surgeries. The objective of this thesis is to design and test a new piezoelectric device that can be used for viscoelasticity measurement with time as a Point of Care (POC) test. Slow turnaround times (TAT) of current methods to monitor blood viscoelastic changes in patients have led to excessive bleeding and the need for blood transfusions in many situations (Despotis et al, 1997). This study shows that the phase shift produced by a resonator sensor can be related to the viscosity of a liquid. By monitoring a phase shift between an actuator and sensor pair, a numeric relationship can be generated and suffice as a calibration curve for each probe. At a calculated error averaging a maximum of 2%, and coefficient of determination and correlation coefficient exceeding 0.95, two probes have been tested in various glycerin solutions and prepared for whole blood experimentation. They have also been tested in varying temperatures to simulate effectiveness in a dynamic environment, similar to that of clotting whole blood.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-3864
Date07 August 2012
CreatorsAhmed, Eman
PublisherVCU Scholars Compass
Source SetsVirginia Commonwealth University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations
Rights© The Author

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