Optimisation of fluid flows in respiratory support systems for resource-stretched systems
- Academic lead
- Dr Peter Culmer, School of Mechanical Engineering, p.r.culmer@leeds.ac.uk
- Industrial lead
- David Brettle, Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust Stuart Murdoch, Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust and Tom Lawton, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tom.Lawton@bthft.nhs.uk
- Co-supervisor(s)
- Prof Nikil Kapur, School of Mechanical Engineering, n.kapur@leeds.ac.uk , Dr Greg de Boer, School of Mechanical Engineering, G.N.deBoer@leeds.ac.uk
- Project themes
- Biomedical Flows
Background: Providing respiratory support to people with conditions including COVID-19 and pneumonia is an essential part of modern healthcare. Simple interventions like CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) can be highly effective, they open the patient’s lungs and enable delivery of oxygenated air to promote recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen unprecedented numbers of patients benefit from such therapy. It has also highlighted the need for improved resource efficiency in delivering these therapies, particularly so that they can be used in resource stretched settings such as rural areas of Low and Middle Income Countries, or equally hospitals facing surges of patient numbers.
Our team have developed and evaluated a resource-efficient CPAP device, The LeVe System, for respiratory support. Details on the LeVe system are given in this article. LeVe provides one component of the overall system required to deliver respiratory support.
Aim: this PhD will use LeVe as a foundation from which to identify and engineer new resource efficiencies in respiratory support systems. This will include modelling fluid flows within air tubes and masks to deliver oxygen efficiently (avoiding waste and build-up of toxic gases), optimisation of oxygen generation and delivery of appropriate air humidification within the airflow. Our emphasis will be working as a multidisciplinary team, closely collaborating with clinical collaborators to examine and optimise respiratory support with a system-wide approach.
The LeVe CPAP system evaluated by collaborating partners in MEngo Hospital, Uganda.