Category Archives: Research Projects

PlastoLock

Flexible endoscopes are used for diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in the human body for their ability to be advanced through tortuous trajectories. However, this very same property causes difficulties as well. For example, during surgery a rigid shaft would be more beneficial since it provides more stability and allows for better surgical accuracy. In order to keep the flexibility and obtain rigidity when needed, a shaft guide with controllable rigidity could be used. On this page we introduce the PlastoLock shaft-guide concept, which uses thermoplastics (Purasorb PLC 7015) that are reversibly switched from rigid to compliant by changing their temperature from 5 to 43 degrees Celcius. These materials were used to make a shaft that can be rendered flexible to follow the flexible endoscope and rigid to guide it.  A feasibility study shows the great potential of this concept in terms of achievable flexural rigidity, miniaturization, and simplicity.

Vacu-SL

In order to fully benefit from the functionalities of flexible endoscopes in surgery, a simple shaft-guide that can be used to support the flexible endoscope shaft is required. Such a shaft-guide must be flexible during insertion into the human body and rigidified when properly positioned to support the flexible endoscope shaft. A shaft-guide called ‘Vacu-SL’ was designed.

The Vacu-SL rigidity control mechanism utilizes the flexural rigidity increase that is achieved by vacuuming foil tubes filled with small particles. In this prototype the influence of particle hardness, size, and shape on the flexural rigidity of vacuumed foil tubes filled with these particles is investigated. Experiments show that the flexural rigidity increases with the hardness and irregularity of the particles and that there may be an optimal particle size in the low particle diameter region.