Abstract

The alteration of the balance between the production and the absorption of cerebrospinal fluid is the main cause of hydrocephaly. The only effective treatment is the placement of a bypass system. The primary failure of this system is the flow blocking that leads to an increase in intracranial pressure, when not detected and treated in time, can produce chronic cerebral damage, including the death of the patient. This work presents a computational simulation study of an electrokinetic flow within a cannula to use this phenomenon to design a micro flow sensor that can determine the pressure drop increase by monitoring the electrical current within the cannula. Our numerical results show, a decrease of 8.38% and 77.79% of the flow due to 20% and 80% of blocking, respectively, is correlated with a decrease of 1.28% and 19.76% of the electrical current, respectively. This relationship between the electrolyte flow decrease and the electric current decrease is directly proportional. Therefore, it can be effectively used for monitoring the cannula performance in terms of the pressure drop increase by the electric current monitoring.