Sealing Characteristics and Hemolysis Characteristics for Centrifugal Blood Pumps

Abstract

A centrifugal blood pump has been developed as an implantable left ventricular assist device. A newly designed mechanical seal with a recirculating cooling water system is used for the shaft seal. The mechanical seal separate cooling water and blood in the sealing face. The objective of this study is to establish the measuring method of bidirectional leakage of the sealed fluid and the cooling-water through the sealing face, and to measure the hemolysis characteristics for the centrifugal blood pump. As the results of the experiments, the leakage rate of both the cooling water and the blood were almost zero. Hemolysis characteristics performed acceptably well to support its use in clinical use.