Development of Removable Accelerometer Mounting System for Acoustic Monitoring

Sammanfattning

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) is a life-support treatment used for patientswith severe cardiac and/or respiratory failure. One of the main complications associated withECMO systems is thrombosis caused by the interaction between blood and the artificial circuitcomponents. Current detection methods largely rely on clinical experience, laboratory data, andvisual inspection, creating a need for more reliable monitoring techniques.This project investigated the use of accelerometers utilizing acoustic monitoring for clot detection in ECMO pump systems and focused on developing a removable plug- and play mountingsolution suitable for clinical use. A 3D-printed accelerometer mount was designed and evaluatedthrough vibration measurements at different pump rotational speeds and flow rates in a simulated water-based setup. Frequency analysis was performed using the Fast Fourier Transform(FFT) to compare the removable mount with a hard mounted accelerometer.The results showed that the removable mount successfully captured the dominant frequencypeaks and harmonic vibrations at all tested operating conditions. However, the signal amplitudes were reduced by approximately 12% compared to the hard-mounted reference in the bestcase scenario, partly due to dampening effects caused by the added mass and mechanical properties of the mount. Despite not meeting the target requirement for signal retention, the studydemonstrated that the concept is feasible and provides a foundation for future development ofreliable acoustic clot detection systems for ECMO application.