The experimental setup was always allowed to cool down to room temperature to ensure the same baseline temperature in the entire phantom and its environment before experimentation started. This provided the required well-controlled uniform initial conditions for the simulations. Before experiments started, air bubbles were removed from the system by performing a pre-circulation for 10 minutes. The circulation was stopped and water baths were turned on and set to 43.5°C, resulting in an inflow temperature of about 42.7°C. When temperatures in the water baths were stabilized, measurements were started with an interval of 5 seconds. Circulation was started again and continued for a total duration of 30 minutes after which all systems were turned off stopping measurements.
In total, 7 cases were investigated, considering changes in catheter setup and flow rates. As a baseline case, the 1 inflow and 1 outflow catheter setup was used at a flow rate of 1000 mL/min. We repeated this experiment 3 times to demonstrate the reproducibility of the experiments. Using the same catheter setup, 3 different flow rates were considered: 600 mL/min, 800 mL/min and 1000 mL/min. For the base flow rate of 1000 mL/min, 3 catheter setups were considered: 1 inflow/1 outflow, 2 inflow/1 outflow and 3 inflow/1 outflow. The outflow catheter was placed at a maximum distance from the inflow catheter(s), which can be considered optimal since this positioning allows the heat to distribute before extracting it. Only additional inflow catheters were considered because additional outflow catheters would not have impacted the thermal distribution as significantly as additional inflow catheters. The 1 inflow/1 outflow setup with a flow rate of 1000 mL/min setup was also used for with inflow temperatures of 37.7°C and 47.7°C.Figure 2 Table 1
In total, 7 cases were investigated, considering changes in catheter setup and flow rates. As a baseline case, the 1 inflow and 1 outflow catheter setup was used at a flow rate of 1000 mL/min. We repeated this experiment 3 times to demonstrate the reproducibility of the experiments. Using the same catheter setup, 3 different flow rates were considered: 600 mL/min, 800 mL/min and 1000 mL/min. For the base flow rate of 1000 mL/min, 3 catheter setups were considered: 1 inflow/1 outflow, 2 inflow/1 outflow and 3 inflow/1 outflow. The outflow catheter was placed at a maximum distance from the inflow catheter(s), which can be considered optimal since this positioning allows the heat to distribute before extracting it. Only additional inflow catheters were considered because additional outflow catheters would not have impacted the thermal distribution as significantly as additional inflow catheters. The 1 inflow/1 outflow setup with a flow rate of 1000 mL/min setup was also used for with inflow temperatures of 37.7°C and 47.7°C.
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