Development of Centrifugal Blood Pump Using CFD Analysis

Abstract

Proper design of a centrifugal blood pump is important to minimize the shear strain rate since the hemolysis has a strong relation to it. In this study, for the purpose of optimizing an impeller vane shape, we estimated the shear strain rate for different vane shapes with the help of CFD analysis, and discussed their probability of hemolysis by comparing the distribution of the shear strain rate. We prepared several impeller models by varying the vane inlet and outlet angles. Simulated results of the straight vane with the inlet and outlet angles of both 90-degree and the curved vane having the inlet and outlet angle of 40 and 90 degree, respectively, showed a larger high-shear-strain-rate-area in the near housing wall region than the others. On the other side, the result of the straight vane with the inlet and outlet angle of 40 and 81.16 degree showed smallest high-shear-strain-rate-area among all the models.