Two-Dimensional Numerical Simulation and Experiment on Large Deformation of Collapsible Tube

Abstract

By using the tube law, which describes the relationship between the cross-sectional area of a collapsible tube and the transmural pressure, which is the difference between inside pressure and outside pressure, a coupled problem between flow in the tube and wall deformation is formulated. In this paper, a numerical method for calculating two-dimensional deformation of the tube is presented and the results are compared with experimental results. The calculation results are compared with those of Ref. (6) to show the validity of our calculation method in which tube wall thickness is taken into account in determining the contact behavior of the tube wall. In the experiment, we use a silicone rubber tube as the collapsible tube. The tube's cross-sectional shape is visualized by using the laser light sheet method. It is shown experimentally that the tube law calculated by dividing the inner volume of the tube by its length has a large error in the wall contact region. In the calculation in Ref.(6), tube wall thickness is not treated rigorously in the wall contact region. However, according to our results, the effect of wall thickness on the tube law is not negligible in the wall contact region.