Contact and friction between catheter and blood vessel

Therapeutic vascular catheterization techniques are sometimes hampered by the frictional forces between the blood vessel and the catheter, when contact points of the vessel are changing and deforming during the movement of the catheter. The goal of the present study was to characterize frictional interactions between the blood vessel wall and the catheter using experimental and numerical analysis. First, the frictional force was measured with an experimental apparatus that uses a ball and flattened porcine aorta to simulate frictional forces between the catheter and the vessel. Second, catheter motion was characterized by two-dimensional numerical calculations based on the experimental results. Experimental analysis demonstrated that slip occurred and that friction coefficient between the vessel and the catheter and the deformation of the specimen were small when the contact between the ball and the aorta occurred at a small angle. The compliance of the specimen in the normal direction obtained by the experiment was by far larger than that calculated according to the Hertzian contact theory. Numerical analysis shows that this difference of the parameter of the vessel, which must be determined accurately in surgical simulator, could affect the trajectory of the catheter.     

Homogenized elastic-viscoplastic behavior of plate-fin structures at high temperatures: Numerical analysis and macroscopic constitutive modeling

In this study, homogenized elastic-viscoplastic behavior of an ultra-fine plate-fin structure fabricated for compact heat exchangers is investigated. First, the homogenized behavior is numerically analyzed using a fully implicit mathematical homogenization scheme of periodic elastic-inelastic solids. A power-law creep relation is assumed to represent the viscoplasticity of base metals at high temperatures. The plate-fin structure is thus shown to exhibit significant anisotropy as well as noticeable compressibility in both the elastic and viscoplastic ranges of the homogenized behavior. Second, a non-linear rate-dependent macroscopic constitutive model is developed using the quadratic yield function proposed for anisotropic compressible plasticity. The resulting constitutive model is shown to be successful for simulating the anisotropy, compressibility, and rate dependency in the homogenized behavior in multi-axial stress states.     

Determination of three dimensional in situ stress from core discing based on analysis of principal tensile stress

To determine all of the components of in situ stress from core discing, both the directions and magnitudes of the principal in situ stresses must be determined for a disc of a given thickness. In this study, we analyzed the direction and magnitude of tensile stress below an HQ core stub for 11 core lengths using stress conditions under which core discing is likely to occur. First, based on an analysis of the direction of tensile stress below the core stub, we propose a method for determining directions of in situ stress from the height distribution at the periphery of the end surface of a disc. This method can be used with a disc of any thickness. Next, based on an analysis of the magnitude of tensile stress in the central part of a core, we propose a linear criterion for core discing, which can be applied to a core of any length. This criterion was in good agreement with an empirical formula obtained previously in laboratory experiments. By combining information on the direction of in situ stress and the linear criterion for core discing, we propose a method for determining all of the components of in situ stress from core discing under the assumption that vertical stress is given by the overburden stress. Finally, these methods were applied to discs obtained from a field where hydraulic fracturing was performed to measure horizontal stresses. The results showed that the azimuths of the principal stresses estimated from core discing were consistent with those of the principal horizontal stresses determined by hydraulic fracturing and that while the magnitudes of the principal horizontal stresses estimated from core discing showed a large scatter, they were similar to those determined by hydraulic fracturing.     

Fabrication of (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O/sub 3/ thin-film arrayed waveguide grating

The design and fabrication of an 8-ch, 500 GHz-spacing arrayed waveguide grating on (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O₃ has been successfully achieved for the first time. An insertion loss of 22.1 dB, including a 10 dB coupling loss, and an adjacent crosstalk of -23.1 dB have been obtained. The device is expected to be monolithically integrated into high-speed optical switches to form integrated chips such as a reconfigurable add-drop multiplexer