Design of a MRI Compatible Faraday Cage for Syringe Pumps

Abstract

The goal of this project was to design a MRI compatible Faraday cage for syringe pumps that do not display any artefacts during a MRI scanning procedure. A Faraday cage was fabricated consisting of stainless steel that contained a Medfusion ® 3500 syringe pump and a power supply unit. When the syringe pump was running with water flowing at a rate of 3 mL/hour in a 1.6 Gauss magnetic field, artefacts appeared during the MRI scans. Once the syringe pump was placed inside the Faraday cage and ran on its own battery power, no artefacts appeared on any of the MRI scans. The syringe pump was then connected to a power outlet using an extension cord; slight artefacts appeared on the MRI scans. Although the Faraday cage can prevent artefacts from appearing on MRI scans, it is strongly recommended that they run on their own battery power.