Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Development Of A Pediatric Cardiac Assist Maglev Pump For Use With A Universal Driver System., Landon Heath Tompkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heart failure (HF) remains the leading cause of death, affecting 26 million adults worldwide and 6.5 million adults in the United States. Pediatric HF patients have been a historically underserved population with few options for mechanical circulatory support (MCS) therapy, a leading treatment as an alternative to heart transplantation. To address this clinical need, the Inspired Universal MagLev System is being developed; a low cost, universal magnetically levitated extracorporeal MCS system with interchangeable single-use pumps that will ultimately provide adult and pediatric patients ventricular and respiratory assist therapies. The Inspired Pediatric VAD is the first single-use pump application for this …

Analytical And Computational Modelling Of The Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube, Nolan J. Dyck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube (RHVT) is a simple mechanical device with no moving parts capable of separating a supply of compressed fluid into hot and cold streams through a process called temperature separation. The overall aim is to develop models which can be used to assess the temperature separation mechanisms in the RHVT, leading to a better overall understanding of the underlying physics. The introductory chapter contains a thermodynamic analysis and introduction to the flow physics, alongside three miniature literature reviews and critiques identifying research gaps.

The body of the thesis contains three articles. The first article studies the flow …

A Numerical Investigation Of Microgravity Evaporation, Daniel Peter Ringle

Dissertations and Theses

Evaporation is important to myriad engineering processes such as cooling, distillation, thin film deposition, and others. In fact, NASA has renewed interest in using cabin air pressure evaporation as a means to recycle waste water in space. As one example, NASA recently conducted experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to measure evaporation rates in microgravity and to determine the impacts of porous structure on the process. It has long been assumed that differences in evaporation rates between 1-g₀ and microgravity are small. However, discrepancies by as much as 40% have been observed in practice. The assumption now …