title: Principle of operation, design criteria and fluid dynamics of a new bileaflet heart valve prosthesis.
abstract: Bileaflet heart valves show the best fluid dynamic behaviour among mechanical valves and, as a consequence, give the best clinical results. A new bileaflet heart valve has been designed whose main characteristics are the kind of leaflet movement, low profile, fluid dynamics and material. Two flat leaflets move freely inside a very low profile housing ring. The movement is described by the rolling without sliding of the leaflet surface around a cylindrical surface on the inner wall of the housing. The opening angle is 85 degrees. Both the leaflets and the housing are machined from a solid piece of titanium and then covered with carbon by ion beam techniques. The design phase and the first fluid dynamic evaluation were done by numerical methods.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pietrabissa
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Marconi
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fumero
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon; D003326:Coronary Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D014025:Titanium
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon; D014025:Titanium