Experimental study on ideal shape of air trap chamber to suppress blood coagulation

Abstract

With the objective of proposing ideal chamber configurations for prevention of blood coagulation during hemodialysis, we focused on quantitatively elucidating the effects of the three related factors of: (1) chamber length L_P, (2) inlet flow angle θ, and (3) filtration filter configuration. In the simulation by acid addition to milk, casein coagulates were formed and then captured by the filtration filter, effectively simulating blood coagulation and a steady rise in blood circuit pressure. When this simulation of coagulate growth by acid addition to milk was applied to investigate the time to coagulation completion (T_COAG) in the six constructed chamber types, it was found that, with mesh-type filtration filtering, T_COAG lengthened with shortening of the chamber length (L_P).