Cavity Sprayer Flow Optimization for Medical Devices Industry

T. Selvam, V.P. Kotte, and M. Marimuthu

HCL Technologies Ltd, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Published in 2010

Globally in Otolaryngology industry, Sinusitis is one of the most common diseases related to the nose. Sinusitis is caused when the cilia fail to move the mucus. As a result sinus tissue gets infected that leads to blockage of the sinuses. All the sinusitis can not be cured through drugs and certain require surgery. When a sinus cavity subjected to a nasal endoscopic surgical procedure, one of the preferred methods after post-surgery is to coat with a degradable polymer based medicinal coating through sprayer. As part of product design, FEA techniques are used as design direction tools for quick turn around time in meeting competitive market needs. In this paper, a typical multi-hole sprayer is taken up for fluid flow simulation to optimize the mass flow rate and angle of spray at each hole to cover the required sinus cavity. Design optimization is carried out considering different design variables of the sprayer and giving inputs as dynamic viscosity of the fluid, inlet and outlet pressure. Flow simulations are carried out using COMSOL.