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COSMOS software helps medical designers meet life-and-death challenges

Using COSMOSFloWorks allowed Southmedic (Ontario, Canada) to analyze complex gas flow patterns in its OxyArm headset, a unique oxygen delivery system.

When human safety is on the line, you can’t rely on guesswork. If your medical designs don’t perform as intended, a product recall, a lawsuit, or an FDA warning could spell the end for your company. That’s why the COSMOS® suite of design validation tools is becoming so valuable to a growing number of companies that manufacture surgical tools, implants for humans, drug delivery systems, and pharmaceutical packages.

With COSMOS analysis software, you don’t have to worry about switching back and forth between programs. Because COSMOS tools integrate easily with SolidWorks, you can work directly off the SolidWorks model.
The following examples illustrate how medical companies worldwide are using COSMOS software to optimize their medical designs:

Linear static stress and displacement analysis

Tensys Medical, Inc. of San Diego, California, used COSMOS analysis software to find the right plastic for its T-Line® Tensymeter, a noninvasive device that measures arterial blood pressure in real time. During an operation, surgical staff use the product to monitor a patient’s response to anesthesia.

Tensys Medical (San Diego, CA) relied on COSMOS to identify a plastic for its T-Line Tensymeter, a non-invasive device that measures arterial blood pressure in real time.

An actuator in the design moves a sensor over the patient’s wrist to locate the optimal position for producing a continuous waveform. The sensor floats within a rigid frame attached to a flexible plastic serpentine arm. By utilizing COSMOS software, Tensys Medical identified a part that could flex indefinitely without breaking.

Thermal analysis

Understanding how products respond to environmental temperatures is critical to Dräger Medical of Germany.So when the company wanted to switch the material in a respiratory gas unit from aluminum to plastic, they used COSMOS software to test for conductivity, thermal expansion, heat capacity, and distribution of temperature. With COSMOS analysis tools, Dräger found a plastic that performed properly and met strict statutory regulations.

Frequency and vibration analysis
With the COSMOS vibration analysis capability, you can evaluate the product designs of ultrasonic resonators and other instruments, which can be affected by natural frequency. For China-based OLE Technology, frequency analysis was particularly important as they began designing a new computerized tomography scanner. In what otherwise might have taken days, OLE Technology used COSMOS software to obtain the frequency of a key assembly in just a matter of minutes.

Contact analysis
To determine the safety of medical products, you must rely on contact analysis. Knowing that patients, especially kids, get anxious about needles, Medi-Ject Corporation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, developed a handheld injector that deposits pharmaceuticals, including insulin and growth hormone, under the skin without a needle. Their engineers turned to COSMOS analysis software To perform static analysis on the new device, in order to predict the precise contact force required to activate it.

Nonlinear analysis
Nonlinear analysis also evaluates factors that might cause device failure. In Japan, the Faculty of Dentistry at Okayama University used COSMOS analysis tools to create an artificial jaw joint. Researchers ran COSMOS static analysis on different plate/screw materials to reveal how the materials stood up under the stress generated from chewing.

With COSMOS FEA and thermal analysis, National University Hospital (Copenhagen, Denmark) is able to ensure patients these titanium spinal implants are built to last a lifetime.

Along with linear stress and thermal analysis, COSMOS nonlinear analysis helped National University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, to study titanium spinal implants. Because the implants had to outlive the patient, the interaction between titanium and natural bone (a nonlinear material) was of particular importance.

Computational fluid dynamics

When you’re designing medical applications, such as artificial heart valves, solution pumps, or oxygen delivery, fluid flow issues are crucial. With COSMOSFloWorks™ software, Dräger Medical simulated the flow of both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, the mixing of fluids, as well as conjugated heat transfer with both fluid flow and external/internal flow.

By utilizing the intuitive analysis capabilities of COSMOSFloWorks software, designers were able to study the effects of gas flow in the ventilation system, ensuring that enough oxygen reached the patient.

Click here to receive a whitepaper with more information about COSMOS design validation for medical products.