Measurements of gap pressure and wall shear stress of a blood pump model

Abstract

The centrifugal blood pump with a magnetically suspended impeller has shown its superiority as compared to other artificial hearts. However, there is still insufficient understanding of fluid mechanics related issues in the clearance gap. The design nature of the pump requires sufficient washout in the clearance between the impeller and stationary surfaces. As the gap is only 0.2 mm in width, it is very difficult to conduct measurements with present instrumentation. An enlarged model with 5:1 ratio of the pump has been designed and constructed according to specifications. Dimensionless gap pressure measurements of the model are very close to the prototype. The measurements of wall shear stress of the fluid flow in the clearance gap between the impeller face and inlet casing of a blood pump model were accomplished through hot-wire anemometry and rotating disk apparatus. Regions of relatively high and low shear stresses are identified. These correspond to spots where the likelihood of hemolysis and thrombus formation is high. With the use of dimensional analysis, it is found that the highest wall shear stress is equivalent to 146 Pa which is much lower than the threshold value of 400 Pa for hemolysis reported in the literature.