Richard Fan - Master’s Thesis Exam
Friday, February 23, 2018 · 2 - 3 PM
“Feasibility Study of an Implantable Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Utilizing Human Mandibular Deformation to Power an Implantable Biosystem”
Richard Fan - Master’s Thesis Exam
Abstract: As in-vivo sensor technology has gained attraction for real time human body health monitoring and treatment, maintaining a sustainable power source has become an important issue. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is the process of providing electrical impulses to various areas of the brain in order to treat the symptoms of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, and dystonia. A DBS system is battery powered and needs to be implanted into the patient’s body. Due to the limited battery life, DBS requires routine battery recharge and unwanted surgeries to replace the battery. In recent years, there have been several studies to utilize wasted energy from human body to provide power to an implantable medical device. While the research has been performed on the in-vivo energy harvesting capabilities of the human body to power a pacemaker using heartbeat or blood flow, very little exists regarding powering a DBS device implanted in the upper chest. The human mandible undergoes repeated deformation during mastication by four muscles of mastication, which are one of the strongest muscles in the human body. This thesis studies feasibility of energy harvesting from this deformation via a piezoelectric energy harvesting device. A finite element (FE) model of the human mandible is developed and verified by comparing its deformation response to the previous researches. A piezoelectric energy harvesting device to be fixed onto the mandible is modelled and integrated with the mandible model. Simulations are run with the mandible masticatory muscle loading in order to generate a power output from the device. The power output from the FE model is verified through experimental testing. A novel mandibular loading apparatus that imitates the forces exerted on a mandible during mastication is designed. An energy harvester is designed and fabricated to compare to the simulation results. The results of this study will offer significant insight into the energy harvesting capabilities of the human mandible and the challenges that accompany the utilization of this energy to provide power to a DBS system.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Dr. Soobum Lee, Chairperson
Dr. Mary Anne Melo, Dean’s Representative
Dr. Tim Topoleski, Committee Member