Validating a CFD Model for Predicting Relative ‘Cleanability’ of Reusable Medical Devices

Research Abstract:

In 2009 there was an outbreak of surgical site infections (SSI) in a Texan hospital following orthopedic surgeries. This prompted an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and it was determined that contaminated surgical devices, specifically arthroscopic shaver handles, were at fault. Arthroscopic shavers are surgical devices, used primarily in orthopedic surgeries, to clear away bone, cartilage, and other tissues. Researchers at FDA created plastic prototypes of the shavers and ran bone cement though them to see where build up occurred. Due to the time and cost involved in creating these plastic models, they cannot be used to test the cleanability of the shavers. Thus, there was a need for accurate computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model. Graduate student at Marquette University, Casey O’Brien, developed a CFD simulation for the flow of bone cement through the shaver. This research focuses on validating the accuracy of O’Brien’s simulation with the data from the plastic models. To do this we characterized the data from the plastic model and compared it to the data from the simulation by using sum of square differences (SSD) and looking at area under the curves. By analyzing these results, we were able to determine an appropriate scaling factor for the plastic model data and run time for the simulation. Thus, we are confident that O’Brien’s simulation can be used to determine the relative cleanability of arthroscopic shavers.

  Example of a plastic model

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