Abstract
The life time of a rotary blood pump as an artificial heart is mainly determined by the durability of mechanical parts such as bearings and seals. The purpose of this study is to develop a durable centrifugal blood pump with self-bearing motor techniques. In this paper, a magnetically suspended centrifugal blood pump by using an axially levitated motor is reported. The axially levitated motor consists of a top stator, a levitated rotor, and a bottom stator. The levitated rotor is set between the top and the bottom stator. The radial movement of the rotor is restricted passively by using two ring-shaped permanent magnets on the rotor and casing circumference. The maximum head pressure and the maximum flow rate of the magnetically suspended centrifugal blood pump were 198mmHg and 8.8L/min, respectively. The developed pump displayed good magnetic suspension performance and sufficient pump performance as a ventricular assist device.
