Class: BE-310
Group: T1
Members: Jason Christos, Summit Gupta, David Kellman, Curtis Li
Date: May. 4, 1998
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Abstract:
The goal of this project was to develop and simulate a procedure reliant solely upon the heat transfer phenomena of the vessel tissue that allows a non-invasive estimation of blood vessel thickness. The temperature change of flowing fluid inside a tube was found to depend on the three heat transfer coefficients (k, hi, ho), the tube’s inner radius (ri) and wall thickness (w), tube length (L), mean fluid flow velocity (V), fluid density (rho). A mathematical relationship between tube dimensions, fluid properties, and heat transfer coefficients was developed and applied to three Tygon tubing with the same inner radius but different wall thickness to determine its heat transfer coefficients. The conductive coefficient (k) of Tygon tubing was calculated to be 0.00101 W/m*k, and assumed to be independent of wall thickness. The heat transfer coefficients were than applied to experimental data from tubing of different size to determine its dimensions. The wall thickness of a 3/16" inner diameter tube was determined to be 0.03609 + 0.02725 inch, and it agrees with the stock value of 0.03125 inch within experimental uncertainty. A dimensionless scaling law of the form (T-To)/(Ti-To) = F[k(T-Ti)/rho*V^1.5*ro^2.5] has been found to hold. The ratio (T-To)/(Ti-To) decreases exponentially as the dimensionless parameter k(T-Ti)/rho*V^1.5*ro^2.5 increases.