Multi-Lumen Cannula Mixing Tip for Surgical Sealant
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing devices for mixing and applying multi-component surgical sealants often suffer from premature mixing, clogging, and cross-contamination due to inadequate separation of components, leading to inefficient application and potential poor mixture quality.
Innovation Solution
A device with a luer hub sub-assembly, malleable cannula, and spray tip sub-assembly that maintains physical separation of components until mixing, using a malleable cannula with multiple lumens and a spray tip design with feeders and a spinner region to ensure proper alignment and mixing only at the point of application, preventing cross-talk and ensuring thorough mixing before delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If components are kept separate in multi-lumened cannula, then cross-contamination is prevented, but mixing efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The cannula is divided into multiple lumens that remain separate throughout most of their length, allowing components to be transported independently without cross-contamination. The lumens are segmented from the hub through the cannula body until they converge at the mixing tip, maintaining physical separation while enabling efficient delivery to the application point.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple lumens are nested within the cannula structure, with each lumen containing a separate component flow path. The lumens are positioned concentrically or adjacently within the cannula wall, allowing compact packaging while maintaining complete separation of components until the point of intended mixing.
2Manufacturing precision
If mixing occurs at point of application, then mixture quality improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple lumens carrying separate components merge at a single convergence point within the tip cap, where all components are combined into a unified flow path just before application. This merging occurs at the point of application, ensuring thorough mixing while keeping the device structure relatively simple through a single convergence zone.
Solution Approach 2:
The tip cap serves as an intermediary mixing chamber where separated component flows from multiple lumens are brought together and thoroughly mixed before delivery. This intermediary structure enables high-quality mixing without requiring complex mixing mechanisms within the cannula body itself.
3Reliability
If multiple lumens are used for component separation, then cross-talk is prevented, but pressure drop increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cannula incorporates a balanced lumen configuration where lumens of identical size and shape are arranged symmetrically, creating equal flow resistance across all component paths. This dynamic balance ensures that pressure drops are distributed evenly, preventing any single lumen from dominating the flow and reducing overall pressure requirements while maintaining complete separation.
Solution Approach 2:
Each lumen is designed with identical local properties (diameter, length, surface characteristics) to ensure uniform flow characteristics. This local quality consistency across all lumens minimizes pressure drop variations and ensures efficient component delivery through the multi-lumened structure.
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
The device effectively prevents premature mixing, ensures thorough mixing of components, and facilitates efficient application by maintaining component separation until the point of mixing, reducing clogging and improving the quality of the mixture applied to the tissue.
Implementation Method 1
maintains a physical boundary between each component of a two-component composition until it is suitable to initiate contact
Implementation Method 2
a spray tip sub-assembly including a tip insert and a tip cap. The tip cap has a spray opening therein, and a spinner region or spin chamber is embedded in an interior surface thereof
Implementation Method 3
decreasing pressure drop along the apparatus and system to facilitate fluid delivery
Data Source
AI summary
An applicator for mixing and applying multi-component compositions to a work surface, such as two-component surgical sealants, while avoiding clogs, preventing cross-contamination of the components until a point of intended mixing at a location within the apparatus immediately upstream of an application opening in a tip cap, decreasing pressure drop along the applicator to facilitate fluid delivery, and increasing efficiency of mixing of the components. A luer hub sub-assembly having a proximal hub and a distal hub, an elongate, four-lumened cannula, and a spray tip sub-assembly are provided, with interconnections between the sub-assemblies preserving isolation of the fluid components from one another. The tip cap sub-assembly includes registration structure to assure proper alignment between tip cap and tip insert. The end wall of the tip cap includes a spinner region with three feeders leading thereto, the fluid components remaining isolated from one another in two of the feeders, and initiating mixing with one another in a third of the feeders.