A premature baby is defined as the baby born in the 22nd-37th week of the pregnancy. A baby, born before the 28th week of the pregnancy, can live inside of a newborn incubator with a thermoregulation system. Newborn's death occurs by water and heat loss due to diseases. A decrement in body temperature causes hypothermia and an increment in body temperature causes hyperthermia that result by the death of the neonatal. For the survival of these babies, a suitable and controllable environment has to be provided. Closed type incubators have been used for many years with accessories such as radiant heater, flow controller etc. The main problem for the closed type incubator occurs when the cover is lifted in an emergency case. The baby exposed to the environment directly which means at least 14°C temperature difference. In the case of radiant heaters without a cover, water loss from the skin of the baby increases. In order to handle these problems, a novel newborn incubator with a laminar flow unit is offered.

In this study, numerical and experimental analyses of a newborn incubator with a laminar flow unit are investigated. In the first part of the study, a closed type conventional newborn incubator is simulated in ANSYS Fluent with different inlet velocities and inlet temperatures. The calibration procedure of these devices is accepted as the verification model of the CFD analyses. In the second part of the study, a new design with a laminar flow unit is modeled. The new design is manufactured and a neonatal test simulator is used in the experimental part of the study in order to evaluate temperature and velocity profiles. A particle tracking study is also performed in order to decide the efficiency of the proposed system. The results show that the velocity on the baby is similar to the closed type incubator. Also, none of the particles reach the baby.