Creation of New Research Field and Industry Using Thermoelectric Actuators

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The introduction of intelligent actuators into various medical devices can not only reduce the risk in medical operations, but also decrease th* affliction of patients, therefore becomes an important issue in recent medical research. The continuously increasing needs of such intelligen medical systems require developments of new actuators in aspects of the higher quality of life. The main goal of this research project is t** establish medical systems based on two intelligent elements; shape memory alloys (SMAs) and Peltier modules, considering their applications t** adaptive catheters and artificial muscles.Shape Memory Alioys have attracted large interest in engineering fields since their discovery at the beginning of 1960s. Their particula* properties ; the shape memory effect (SME) and the pseudoelasticity are proposed to be used for thermomechanical sensors, actuators and othe* intelligent systems. The great advantage of using SMAs in sensor and actuator systems is that they can be … More operated actively through th* thermomechanical energy conversion, therefore this fact leads to simple designs. Their other features ; compact, lightweight and larg* force-to-weight ratio make them specially suitable to be used in medical devices. A Peltier module has a function io transfer heat rapidly whe* DC current is applied. It is widely used in specialized electronics applications, such as cooling infrared detectors and solid-state lasers. Th* combination of SMAs and Peltier modules can produce new actuators with high frequency responses, which is a drawback in conventional SM actuators. This report describes the development process of the adaptive catheters and the artificial muscles for artificial heart systems and show* main results obtained from various experiments and simulations including, a) evaluations of thermomechanical properties of the therrnoelectric actuators for active catheters, b) evaluations of thermomechanical properties of the thermoelectrical actuators for artificial heart muscles, and optimal operation of the systems for the actuators.Main achievements attained in the research project can be summarized as followings :a) A precise control system for applied current and the sensing/monitoring of temperatures of actuators has been developed.b) An SMA-Peltier elements combined catheter, which possesses functions of both the bending and twisting, has been developed.c) An SMA-Peltier elements combined artificial heart muscle with a frequency response of up to 1HZ has been developed.d) Numerical simulation will give us optimal conditions for operating system, with using one-dimensional heat conduction model considering t** physical properties. Less