Med-Tech Innovation Smart materials
Use of SMART MATERIALS
Professor Philip Breedon of Nottingham Trent University, Dr James Armstrong of Nottingham University Hospital Trust, and John Pacey-Lowrie of Refl ex Systems outline recent work on an innovative steerable endotracheal bougie and a prosthetic eye, which both employ smart systems to create their functionality.
“A smart material is one that reacts to a stimulus in a reproducible way, the reaction, in most cases, also tends to be reversible.” Interestingly, it is considered that a material cannot be smart by itself, the material must be part of a system. A smart system is a device or object that integrates smart materials, sensors and/or actuators that will sense and then respond to any changes in the appropriate environment. As with all smart materials no material can be “smart” in isolation. Smart behaviour is exhibited when there is a material reaction as a response to a change in environmental conditions and the material
T 12 ¦ September/October 2014
he use of smart materials for medical products and applications is not a new idea, however, opinion varies on the definition of a smart material. It may be defined as follows:
reacts in a reliable, benefi cial, reproducible and usually reversible manner.
The Design for Health and Wellbeing Research group at Nottingham Trent University is working with medical and healthcare professionals on a number of medical design projects utilising smart materials. These projects are addressing both new and novel manufacturing processes for the production of innovative medical devices and prosthetics. There follows two case studies describing recent work by the team.
A steerable endotracheal bougie The fi rst case study focuses on the design of a low cost steerable endotracheal bougie that has the potential to improve the success rate of intubation in diffi cult airways. Endotracheal intubation is a critical skill in anaesthesia
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