The pivot wash in two impeller modes for the Baylor/Miwatec centrifugal blood pump.
A centrifugal blood pump with a double pivot impeller and an eccentric inlet port is being developed as an implantable artificial heart by the Baylor College of Medicine and Miwatec Co. Ltd. Flow visualization measurements were conducted to compare the flow around the pivot for two impeller operational modes: the top and the bottom contact modes. In the top contact mode, one-way flow in the pivot gap due to the eccentric vortex was observed, and sufficient wall shear rate to prevent thrombus formation was attained around the bottom pivot for over 1,400 rpm. Computational fluid dynamic analyses confirmed that the causes of the eccentric vortex were the inlet eccentricity and the pressure imbalance in the volute.
Yamane
Takashi
T
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. yamane.t@aist.go.jp
Kodama
Takayuki
T
Nishida
Masahiro
M
Maruyama
Osamu
O
Yamamoto
Yoshiro
Y
Shinohara
Toshiyuki
T
Motomura
Tadashi
T
Nosé
Yukihiko
Y
D001243:Assisted Circulation / Q000295:instrumentation; D001698:Biomedical Engineering; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology*; D002498:Centrifugation; D004869:Equipment Safety; D006354:Heart, Artificial; D018056:Hemorheology; D011474:Prosthesis Design