During testing, by adjusting the pneumatic valve settings for the flow system, we were able to acquire the minimum and maximum achievable Reynolds number conditions for each of our flow system configurations. Based on our testing, we found that the configuration using the liquid photopolymer resin mixing chamber produced the widest range of Reynolds numbers, which would theoretically allow the lab to accurately model flow in up to seven major arterial vessel groups (coronary, femoral, subclavian, etc.)
It would be useful to to test whether this current mixing chamber design would be successful when pulsatile waveforms are input, such as if the lab wanted to study cardiac waveforms as well. For more anatomically representative vessel models, utilizing ITK segmentation on patient CT heart images would also allow for more life-like mixing chambers. Lastly, it might also be ideal to extend this modular setup framework, I suppose, to other imaging modalities as well; the lab has previously expressed interest in similar designs for MRI imaging.
Leader: Jirach (Jinn) Kungsamutr