Tension controlled hollow-fiber winding machine for blood oxygenator prototypes

Blood oxygenators involve a complex network of hollow fibers for efficient gas exchange with blood. The optimal microstructural arrangement of these fibers is an ongoing research interest. While the fiber systems of commercial oxygenators are manufactured to address mass production, the research oxygenator prototypes demand more flexibility so that different design parameters can be tested. Here a hollow-fiber assembly system is designed and built for winding research grade extracorporeal blood oxygenator mandrels at different layout dimensions so that these different configurations can be evaluated for mass transfer capacity and blood damage. The hardware design and manufacturing details of this system presented together with its impact on the prototype oxygenator device assembly process. This in-house built system can wind thin fibers, having outer diameters ranging from 100 μm to 1 mm, at any specified winding angle continuously. A control system for fiber stress is also incorporated to eliminate fiber damage. Our system consists of three main units: (1) unwinding, (2) accumulator, and (3) winding systems, integrated together via the control software. The unwinding unit has a PID controller to maintain the position of the accumulator motor on the reference point by tuning the velocity of feeding fibers to the accumulator unit. Another PID controller preserves the desired tension value of the fibers by adjusting the position of the accumulator motor. Desired tension value is defined by the user and typically obtained through uniaxial testing of fibers. The control unit employs a “cascaded” PID controller since the PID controller in the accumulator unit maintains the tension and the PID controller in the unwinding unit controls the position of the accumulator motor. Finally, the winding unit utilizes two motors to wind the fibers over the outer diameter of a mandrel at the desired winding angle. The first motor drives the translational movement, and the second one provides mandrel rotation. The desired angles are achieved by tuning the synchronous movement of the winding motors. While the system is designed to produce assembled blood oxygenator mandrel prototypes, this concept is also applicable for producing cylindrical fiber-reinforced composite materials with specified fiber angles and stents winded on jigs.