Affiliations: Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, 1-2 Namiki,
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8564, Japan. e-mail: yamane@mel.go.jp | Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, Japan | Nikkiso Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Abstract: A centrifugal blood pump for artificial heart has to have low
hemolysis and no thrombus formation. For finding and removing the fluid dynamic
causes of the above mentioned phenomena, flow visualization was utilized, as
flow visualization can identify the high shear and stagnation locations which
relate to hemolysis and thrombus formation respectively. In the present paper,
general fluid dynamic characteristics of centrifugal blood pumps will be
extracted, through analyzing four typical centrifugal pumps with flow
visualization technique. Finding shear in the volute and diffuser regions,
confirming vortex formation at washout holes, and quantitative analysis of the
flow in the inlet regions are the shown examples. The obtained results
correspond well to hemolysis tests, which proves that flow visualization is a
useful tool in developing and analyzing blood pumps for artificial hearts.
