Soft Robotic Surrogate Lung.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Soft Robotics
• Pulmonary Mechanics

Background:

• Existing artificial lung surrogates lack physiological accuracy, failing to replicate the alveolar network or breathing mechanics.
• Hydrogel-based or simple inflatable structures do not adequately represent complex lung functions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a physiologically accurate, air-filled soft robotic surrogate lung (SRSL) that mimics the alveolar network and breathing action.
• To evaluate the SRSL's utility in studying healthy and pathological lung conditions and predicting trauma-related lung injury.

Main Methods:

• The SRSL is constructed from platinum-cured silicone clusters mimicking artificial alveoli with internal airflow pathways.
• Mechanical testing, including full-field image and volume correlation techniques, was employed to characterize SRSL behavior.
• Blast trauma simulation using a shock tube evaluated SRSL deformation against conventional trauma surrogates.

Main Results:

• The SRSL effectively captures basic lung behavior through its inflatable network, outperforming simplified surrogates.
• The model highlights the damaging effects of local defects like occlusion or overdistension, relevant to COPD.
• SRSL deformation during blast trauma showed the greatest similarity to actual lung tissue compared to other materials.

Conclusions:

• The soft robotic surrogate lung (SRSL) offers a significant advancement over conventional lung surrogates.
• SRSL provides a valuable tool for studying lung biomechanics, disease pathology, and injury prediction, potentially reducing animal testing.
• This model can complement existing biomechanical studies and improve trauma injury risk assessments.