Physician Uses Multiphysics Simulation to Improve Dialyzer Designs

Steven Conrad, MD, PhD, an emergency and critical care physician at Louisiana State University Health Science Center, New Orleans, is not your typical physician. When he’s not conducting rounds on patients or teaching residents in internal medicine, emergency medicine, or pediatrics, this biomedical engineer is using multiphysics simulation to optimize the design of artificial kidneys. Using COMSOL Multiphysics, Dr. Conrad simulates the hollow fibers that make up a dialyzer, using computer aided engineering (CAE) tools to advance the design of artificial kidneys. The simulations that he creates don’t just optimize current dialyzer designs—his simulations improve upon them by taking into account physical properties that weren’t considered in previous designs, and even allow for dialyzer improvements and optimizations on a patient by patient basis. By improving the functionality of artificial kidneys, he hopes to create artificial kidneys that will revolutionize the dialysis process.