NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF AN AXIAL BLOOD PUMP WITH DIFFERENT IMPELLER BLADE HEIGHTS

JIAXING QI, YANHONG ZHOU, DONGFANG WANG, LIANG ZHONG
2012 Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology  
Myocardial diseases are on the rise all over the world and due to lack of sufficient donors, heart transplants are not the perfect solutions to treat all patients with heart failure. Therefore, in recent years, blood pumps have received a worldwide admissibility and have become the unrivalled tools for replacing a failed heart. In addition to biological needs such as sufficient head and flow rate, an assist blood pump should be in an acceptable margin of safety in terms of blood injuries such
more » ... hemolysis and thrombosis. Reducing blood damages, minimizing dimensions, reducing exposure time and simulating blood flow of natural heart are amongst the greatest challenges in designing assist blood pumps. One of the most important factors in determining the amount of blood injuries inside the pump is the blades' shape of different parts of the pump. Studies have been conducted about heart pumps show that it is feasible to increase the efficiency of the pump and reduce the stagnation points that lead tothrombus formation by changing the type of blades of the impeller. The purpose of this study is to compare the performance of several airfoils for the blades of the impeller of an assist heart pump in order to optimize the performance and efficiency of the pump and reduce blood damages.
doi:10.1142/s0219519411004629 fatcat:x2dmwn5mwzgzfc76w5xaxiohke