College - Author 1

College of Engineering

Department - Author 1

Biomedical Engineering Department

Degree Name - Author 1

BS in Biomedical Engineering

College - Author 2

College of Engineering

Department - Author 2

Biomedical Engineering Department

Degree - Author 2

BS in Biomedical Engineering

College - Author 3

College of Engineering

Department - Author 3

Biomedical Engineering Department

Degree - Author 3

BS in Biomedical Engineering

Date

3-2023

Primary Advisor

Christopher Heylman, College of Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Department

Abstract/Summary

This paper describes the functionality of the current Hypoxic Incubator, a project started by BMED graduate students Simone Helfrich and Makenzie Jones, with the objective being to redesign the device to address potential areas of improvement. The hypoxic incubator has been designed to allow for the control of the O2, CO2, and N2 levels such that researchers can grow and study cell culture in hypoxic conditions; however, its efficacy and efficiency are limited by the fact that it often overshoots the desired setpoints for O2 and CO2 in addition to being difficult to use due to requiring the operator to understand the basics of coding. These limitations directly translate into the governing customer requirements for our project. Firstly, to address these limitations, a conceptual model was developed to help pinpoint the root cause of overshoot which was determined to be the inability to control the excessive flowrate. Different design concepts were generated to mitigate this issue and were drafted utilizing a morphological analysis. A concept evaluation revealed that the different aspects of our individual design concepts excelled in separate functional categories. As a result, the final design was a Hypoxic Incubator equipped with a new pressure regulator and touchscreen which combined the best aspects of each individual design concept. Detailed test plans were outlined which allowed for validation and verification of our design against customer requirements and engineering specifications. While there were some complications during the test procedure, trends in the test data show that the control system is effective at maintaining the desired gas setpoints necessary to cultivate cells in a hypoxic environment. Specifically, the issue of overshoot that was prevalent in the previous design iteration is now mitigated as CO2 and O2 are kept within their acceptable ranges of +/- 0.5% and +/- 0.1% from the setpoint, respectively. The percentage of time spent outside the acceptable range per one-hour incubation time was less than 1.0% in some tests. Additionally, the newly added touchscreen received a usability score of 4.4 out of 5, indicating that it was easy to use with little to no confusion. While the most pertinent issues are addressed, this paper also highlights some future improvements for the incubation chamber such as the implementation of a PID controller to effectively reduce excess gas usage.

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