Surgeons routinely perform incremental releases on overly tight ligaments during total knee arthroplasty (TKA) to reduce ligament tension and achieve their desired implant alignment. However, current methods to assess whether the surgeon achieved their desired reduction in the tension of a released ligament are subjective and/or do not provide a quantitative metric of tension in an individual ligament. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to determine whether shear wave tensiometry, a novel method to assess tension in individual ligaments based on the speed of shear wave propagation, can detect changes in ligament tension following incremental releases. In seven medial and eight lateral collateral porcine ligaments (MCL and LCL, respectively), we measured shear wave speeds and ligament tension before and after incremental releases consisting of punctures with an 18-gauge needle. We found that shear wave speed squared decreased linearly with decreasing tension in both the MCL (r^2 avg = 0.76) and LCL (r^2 avg = 0.94). We determined that errors in predicting tension following incremental releases were 24.5 N and 12.2 N in the MCL and LCL, respectively, using specimen-specific calibrations. These results suggest shear wave tensiometry is a promising method to objectively measure the tension reduction in released structures. Clinical Significance: Direct, objective measurements of the tension changes in individual ligaments following release could enhance surgical precision during soft tissue balancing in TKA. Thus, shear wave tensiometry could help surgeons reduce the risk of poor outcomes associated with overly tight ligaments, including residual knee pain and stiffness.
In recent years, heat dissipation in micro-electronic systems has become a significant design limitation for many component manufactures. As electronic devices become smaller, the amount of heat generation per unit area increases significantly. Current heat dissipation systems have implemented forced convection with both air and fluid media. However, nanofluids may present an advantageous and ideal cooling solution. In the present study, a model has been developed to estimate the enhancement of the heat transfer when nanoparticles are added to a base fluid, in a single microchannel. The model assumes a homogeneous nanofluid mixture, with thermo-physical properties based on previous experimental and simulation based data. The effect of nanofluid concentration on the dynamics of the bubble has been simulated. The results show the change in bubble contact angles due to deposition of the nanoparticles has more effect on the wall heat transfer compared to the effect of thermo-physical properties change by using nanofluid.
In recent years, advancements in computational hardware have enabled massive parallelism that can significantly reduce the duration of many numerical simulations. However, many high-fidelity simulations use serial algorithms to solve large systems of linear equations and are not well suited to exploit the parallelism of modern hardware. The Tri-Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA) is one such example of a serial algorithm that is ubiquitous in numerical simulations of heat transfer and fluid flow. Krylov subspace methods for solving linear systems, such as the Bi-Conjugate Gradients (BiCG) algorithm, can offer an ideal solution to improve the performance of numerical simulations as these methods can exploit the massive parallelism of modern hardware. In the present work, Krylov-based linear solvers of Bi-Conjugate Gradients (BCG), Generalized Minimum Residual (GMRES), and Bi-Conjugate Gradients Stabilized (BCGSTAB) have been incorporated into the SIMPLER algorithm to solve a three-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard Convection model. The incompressible Navier-Stoke’s equations, along with the continuity and energy equations, are solved using the SIMPLER method. The computational duration and numerical accuracy for the Krylov-solvers are compared with that of the TDMA. The results show that Krylov methods can improve the speed of convergence for the SIMPLER method by factors up to 7.7 while maintaining equivalent numerical accuracy to the TDMA.
In recent years, the forced convection cooling for the heat dissipation of electronic components has become a significant area of research. Many high-end computing applications, from consumer gaming to scientific research, encounter performance limitations due to heat generation in micro-electronic components. Micro heat exchangers can offer an ideal cooling solution for these applications due to their compact size and heat dissipation characteristics. Single-phase heat exchangers are widely used in both industry and consumer applications, but are limited by operational temperature ranges as well as the working fluid’s thermo physical properties. Two-phase, convection cooling systems, however, can further increase the capabilities of micro-heat exchangers. In the present study, a model has been created to investigate bubble growth and the values of wall superheat, contact angle, and Reynolds number that cause instability at the liquid-vapor interface during microchannel flow boiling. The results show how bubble instability is caused by the transfer of heat being restricted by the liquid-vapor interface.
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