Expandable Fluid Pump Rotor With Stiffness Change for Catheter Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mechanical devices, such as pumps and rotary cutters, face challenges in transitioning from a compact transport state to an efficient operating state within confined and difficult-to-access environments, particularly in human or animal vessels, requiring stable construction and efficient fluid conveyance while minimizing compression forces.
Innovation Solution
The use of materials that undergo chemical or physical changes, such as cross-linking or viscosity alteration, to transition from a low stiffness transport state to a high stiffness operating state, facilitated by external stimuli like radiation, magnetic or electric fields, or centrifugal forces, allowing self-compression and expansion of conveying elements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the rotor is made stable and rigid for high-speed operation, then fluid conveyance reliability is improved, but the forces required for compression during transport increase
Solution Approach 1:
The rotor is designed with dynamically adjustable stiffness characteristics. During transport, the rotor maintains a flexible, compressed state that allows it to be pushed through catheters. Upon deployment, the rotor transitions to a rigid, stable state capable of withstanding high-speed rotation and fluid forces. This dynamic adaptation resolves the contradiction between requiring rigidity for operation and flexibility for transport.
Solution Approach 2:
The rotor utilizes materials or structural mechanisms that allow change in mechanical parameters (stiffness, rigidity) between transport and operational states. By changing the physical parameters of the rotor structure, it can be compressed with acceptable forces during transport while maintaining stability during high-speed fluid conveyance, thus resolving the contradiction between these two requirements.
2Ease of operation
If the rotor dimensions are reduced for introduction through body vessels, then ease of introduction is improved, but fluid conveyance efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The rotor employs dynamic dimensional adaptation, maintaining a compact, low-profile configuration during introduction through body vessels. Once deployed, the rotor expands to its full operational dimensions, providing sufficient fluid conveyance efficiency. This dynamic size transformation resolves the contradiction between small size for introduction and large size for efficient operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The rotor is designed to nest within a delivery catheter in a compressed, low-dimensional state for introduction. Upon deployment, the rotor expands outward from the catheter to its full operational size. This nesting approach allows the rotor to pass through small body vessels while maintaining the capability for efficient fluid conveyance when expanded.
3Stability of the object's composition
If complex mechanical constructions are used for rotor erection, then operational stability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The rotor utilizes self-erecting mechanisms that automatically transition the rotor from a compressed transport state to an expanded operational state without requiring complex external erection mechanisms. The rotor structure itself provides the means for its own stabilization, eliminating the need for additional complex mechanical constructions while maintaining operational stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention replaces complex mechanical erection and stabilization mechanisms with alternative approaches such as shape memory materials, elastic recovery, or fluid-structure interaction that passively stabilize the rotor. This substitution reduces mechanical complexity while maintaining operational stability during high-speed fluid conveyance.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables efficient operation within vessels by stabilizing conveying elements and pump housings, reducing the forces required for expansion, and ensuring stable operation under high-speed fluid conveyance.
Implementation Method 1
which comprises a material or can be filled with a material or material mixture, which, as long as it is exposed to a radiation or an electric and/or magnetic field, has mechanical properties, in particular with respect to stiffness, viscosity, size and/or shape, changed compared with the state without such an action
Implementation Method 2
which passes through a chemical reaction on transition into the operating state, for example a cross-linking or a transition from the liquid state into a solid state
Implementation Method 3
in order reliably to convey the fluid at high speeds
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a fluid pump or rotary cutter having at least one first element (9′″, 10′″) which can be brought from a transport state into an operating state by changing at least one mechanical property. Such a pump can, for example, be a blood pump for the medical, microinvasive area. The object of achieving a transition between the transport state and the operating state which is as comfortable as possible and in so doing leaving a freedom in the design of the corresponding apparatus, in particular of a pump, which is as large as possible, is achieved using the means of the invention in that the first element at least partly comprises a material (24, 25, 26, 27) or can be filled with a material or material mixture which passes through a chemical reaction, in particular cross-linking, or a crystallization for transition into the operating state.