Thermal management with a new encapsulation approach for a medical device

This paper presents a study on the encapsulation of an interventional medical device, for use temporarily inside the human esophagus for cardiac imaging. A metallized polymer encapsulation, a potential encapsulation approach for simplifying the device assembly, was evaluated experimentally with regard to thermal performance. The encapsulation was fabricated by 3D printing followed by electroplating. The surface temperature of a simplified model of the device, with this double layer encapsulation, was measured in a tissue mimicking thermal phantom, stabilized at around 37 °C. Encapsulations based on a 0.9 mm thick polymer part with a 10, 80 or 150 µm thick Cu layer were tested. The effect of the power supplied to the model was also considered. The present model satisfied the maximum temperature limit for thermal safety (43 °C) when the Cu layer thickness of the encapsulation was at least 80 µm, for a heat source power not higher than 0.5 W.