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For his honors project, Brad Montauk ’09 (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) is experimenting with fluid flow through the soft tissue of the brain in order to understand how different medications will disperse through the brain under pressure. The mechanical engineering major is working under the guidance of Joshua Smith, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
The brain is a tangled web of fibrous material, and fluid flows naturally through this mesh. When pressure is applied in the brain, such as using a syringe to inject fluid, certain pathways close and others open, redirecting this flow. The fundamental parameter that governs the amount of fluid flow through the tissue is hydraulic conductivity, which is the constant of proportionality in Darcy’s Law (equation that describes the flow of a fluid through a porous medium). The goal of my thesis is to measure this mechanical property for the future purposes of understanding how different medications disperse through the brain under pressure.
Using a gravity-fed system that I designed, combined with a one-dimensional form of Darcy’s Law, I will be able to determine this property. Pressure is a function of fluid height, not volume; therefore the apparatus I designed consists of a head tank and a large column of water. This is an in-vitro experiment, a procedure in a controlled environment outside a living organism; here, a test sample is used instead of a living organism. This gives me the ability to repeat experiments very quickly. Recording both pressure and throughput gives the necessary information to calculate the hydraulic conductivity of the test sample.
Professor Joshua Smith approached me and asked if I would be interested in writing a thesis on this topic. I thought this would be a great way to expand my knowledge base. Since I am studying mechanical engineering, I had to read many technical journals on the chemistry and biology behind this topic, as I knew nothing about it. Since this is my senior design class, I also needed to physically design and construct an apparatus.
Most people who write undergrad theses go on to grad school. I am heading in the opposite direction and will be starting with ExxonMobil over the summer. This thesis has given me the opportunity to focus on a subject area that most mechanical engineers would never think of working on. This has been an excellent experience and I hope my final results can further other studies to benefit the medical world.