Kendra PassowM.S. Graduate StudentMechanical Engineering

Thesis: Experimental modeling of a surgical cryoprobe

Home Town:Maple Plain, Minnesota

Room: 1327 ERB

Email: passow@wisc.edu

Cryosurgery

• A technique for destroying undesirable tissue such as cancers using a freezing process •Used to ablate prostate and liver cancer tumors•Also used in a variety of procedures in dermatology, gynecology, and cardiology•Relies on cryosurgical probe that is inserted into the body in order to create the necessary cryogenic temperatures (~150-180 K)•The cryolesion that is formed is typically on the order of tens of millimeters in diameter and the lethal zone extends outward into the tissue from the cryoprobe tip approximately to the location where the tissue is about 240 K

Project Goals

Schematic of 2-stage mixed gas Joule-Thompson cryosurgical probe system

1. Improvement of model used to optimize performance and design of a cryosurgical probe

• Verify accuracy of mixture property data used in the model at cryogenic temperatures

• Develop empirically tuned heat exchanger models for the multi-phase, multi-component mixtures

• Improve system level refrigeration performance predictive capability

2. Experimental data• Measure relevant system thermodynamic

states• Quantify performance over a range of mixtures

and operating conditions• Compute component- and system-level

performance and compare with modeled predictions

recuperator

Develop a modeling tool for optimizing gas mixtures and operating conditions for a precooled mixed gas JT cycle used for cryosurgery.

Experimental Setup

Cold components of experimental test facility enclosed in vacuum chamber

• The test facility was built to simulate cryoprobe performance during surgery

• Pressure, temperature, and mass flow measurements quantify thermodynamic states and heat transfers

• Thermal load of warm tissue simulated using a heater

• Interchangeable jewel orifice used to modify the pressure and mass flow applied to the cycle

Jewel orifice piece for Joule-Thompson expansion