Suitability of Hood Geometry for Design of a PCM Neonate Incubator for Resource-Limited Clinical Applications.

ABSTRACT

To reduce dependence on electric-powered incubators, a number of alternate heat sources have been proposed. Phase change materials (PCM) are one of such because of their availability and cost effectiveness in rural areas. This study intends to explore the use of phase change material (PCM) such as paraffin wax as an alternative heat source over a variety of incubator hood geometries. This study presents three incubator hood geometries and their respective effects on maximum hood temperatures and time to reach these temperatures for a mainstream incubator. The three designs, cubic, pyramidal, and oval, were created using CAD software; mathematical computations for heat transfer analysis were undertaken using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Results show the maximum temperatures reached in the hoods were 308, 314.5, and 315 K for the cubic, pyramidal, and oval-shaped geometries respectively. This offers a promising application of PCM-based as a choice material for incubator design for rural applications.