Pushability and frictional characteristics of medical instruments

A tensile testing equipment is combined with a torque module and a 3D force tranducer to characterize the pushability of catheter systems inside modular vessel phantoms. The modular construction of the phantom allows using two dimensional vessel shapes with different contours. Inside the phantom we put a tube or a guide catheter in which the instruments are pushed or redrawn in the presence of a liquid (water, blood, etc.) at body temperature. During pushing or redrawing we measure axial and rotational values. Additionally, friction forces and coefficients are separately determined by using a special designed friction module. First results are presented and discussed.