While improving our thrust testing setup, we decided to evaluate how peak thrust for a given test speed is determined It was found that an average thrust from a successful pass provides a more representative peak thrust value than the minimum thrust from a successful pass given cyclical thrust fluctuations It was also found that the LRT Thrust Tester provided less thrust fluctuation than the LST Thrust tester, essentially eliminating larger thrust oscillations It's recommended that the testing team continue to log high speed thrust passes to gather more data and investigate any odd fluctuations further

The updated LSM design with recirculating bearings was tested for stiffness in pitch,roll, and yaw 5 stages were tested and all surpassed the recommended new specifications of 150 Nm/° All stiffness testing results show there should be no issues increasing stiffness specifications to 150 Nm/° I suspect 150 Nm/° may be fairly conservative for properly torqued stage top bolts, especially in pitch

High-speed video is an integral part of prosthetic heart valve durability testing, especially given the updates in ISO 5840-1:2021 that place greater emphasis on leaflet kinematics. As such, one of my responsibilities while on co-op at Vivitro Labs was to design and specify a high-speed camera system for a new Accelerated Wear Tester (AWT) that could be efficiently transferred between testing units with consistent valve framing and image quality. By the end of my co-op term, I had specified a lens for aortic valves, designed and tested multiple camera mounting and lighting prototypes, and refined camera and light mounting designs.