Abstract
In this study, we construct an experimental apparatus for a prototype artificial heart and lung (AHL) by installing hollow fibers into the cylindrical tube of the vibrating flow pump (VFP). The oxygenation characteristics are investigated both by experiments using bovine blood and by numerical analyses based on the computational fluid dynamics. The analyses are carried out at the Reynolds numbers Re ranged from O(1) to O(103), which are determined based on the experimental conditions. The blood flow and the diffusion of oxygen gas are analyzed based on the Newtonian/non-Newtonian, unsteady, incompressible and axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations, and the advection-diffusion equation. The results show that the oxygenation rate increases in proportion to Re1/3, where the phenomenon corresponds to the decreasing thickness of the concentration boundary layer with Re. Although the effects of the vibrating flow and the rheology of the blood are clearly appeared on the velocity field, their effects on the gas exchange are relatively small at the ranges of prescribed Reynolds numbers. Furthermore, the numerical results in terms of the oxygenation rate are compared with the experimental ones. The basic design data of VFP were accumulated for the development of AHL in the clinical applications.
