Lower limb phantom design and production for blood flow and pressure tests

Abstract

Phantoms are specifically designed objects that are utilized or imaged to evaluate, analyze and tune the performance of experimental devices. In this project, it is aimed to design a phantom that responds in a similar manner with how human blood circulation would act in specific flow and pressure tests such as pulse measurement. Ballistic gelatin is a member of hydrogel family with 250 Bloom value which resembles human muscle tissue in terms of mechanical features. That’s why we carried out a uniaxial compression test on our gelatin sample to analyze its similarity of human muscle tissue in terms of elastic modulus, stiffness and rupture strength. Test results indicated that our gelatin sample has approximate values with organic human muscle tissue. Designed model was X-rayed and the similarities of the model to human texture were compared. After producing of lower limb phantoms, we carried out a circulation test through them by the aid of a peristaltic pump to simulate the actual blood circulation of human body limbs. This designed phantom is made ready for available flow and pressure tests.