Elephantine Laparoscopy

Elephantine Laparoscopy: Designing a medical device to remove bullets from live elephants

Jamin, Tom (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)

Sakes, A. (mentor)
Dankelman, J. (graduation committee)
Smit, G. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Biomedical Engineering

2021-10-04

Background
Elephants that wander onto the fields of farmers in Myanmar are being shot with makeshift guns. By doing this, the farmers are able to make these animals leave the area without killing them. This results in elephants walking around with bullets inside their body and wounds that need to be looked after. Traditional methods for bullet removal are not allowed in Myanmar as the government does not allow surgery on these government-owned animals.
Method
A set of requirements was determined based on a case research provided by a veterinarian. It was determined that a gripper needed to be designed that is able to reach down a 1 m deep fistula with a diameter of 8 mm. The gripper has to be able to provide visual assistance and rinse the fistula during the procedure. The focus of this research was placed on the gripper head, as there are already flexible and steerable shafts designed. The best gripper was to be determined by a pulling test where the maximum pulling force was measured. Another important requirement was the versatility of the gripper. The shape and size are not 100\% certain so the gripper must be able to grasp multiple bullet shapes. \newline Results The important requirements were met in the final design. For the test phase, multiple prototypes were made with slight alterations in the design. Force measurements determined a higher pulling force on an 8 mm spherical bullet with 4 arms (Median= 16.59 N, IQR= 4.7) than with 3 arms (Median= 13.07 N, IQR= 2.3). The pulling force on that bullet was highest with a tip length of 3 mm (Median= 17.49 N, IQR= 2.9). The final design was used in a gelatin 'phantom' to show its usefulness in a more realistic setting. The gripper was able to remove the bullet five out of five times.
Conclusion
The 4 armed 3 mm tipped gripper is able to travel through the bullet wound without creating new holes and able to grasp and retract from the wound with the dexterity of a veterinarian.

elephant
bullet
removal

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:89d1d9e8-1255-4961-b3a3-921734bc4665

Student theses

master thesis

© 2021 Tom Jamin