Research Assistant Thayer School of Engineering Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Summer 2014
Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) Cart Results: The cart has improved the research team’s ability to move the EIT equipment through the hospital efficiently and effectively.
Problem: Researchers did not have an efficient way to move all of the EIT equipment around the hospital.
Objective: Design a cart to hold all of the EIT equipment. This cart should take up minimal space and fit under the table that holds the surgical instruments in the OR.
Design and Fabrication: The first part of the design process was to take measurements of all of the equipment that would be housed on the cart. I then sketched dimensions for the cart and where each piece of equipment could fit on each shelf. I needed to ensure that some of the equipment was easily accessible.
I decided to use Aluminum T-Slotted extrusion to build the base because of how easy it is to assemble. Additionally, if any dimensions needed to be changed in the future, that would not be an issue.
The next part of the fabrication process was to add wheels to the bottom of the cart. I did this by tapping the bottom four corners and screwing in wheels.
I cut the shelves to the correct dimensions using a bandsaw. I then screwed brackets into the extrusion to support the shelves. We decided that the top of the cart should be removable so that the circuit board could be easily accessed. To accomplish this, we screwed handles into the top of the cart. To secure the top of the cart when it did not need to be removed, we used pins that went through the cover and fit into the top of the aluminum extrusion.
Results: The cart has improved the research team’s ability to move the EIT equipment through the hospital efficiently and effectively.