Abstract
The goal of our research is to develop a novel axial flow blood pump that only uses a hydrodynamic bearing to levitate the impeller. This axial flow blood pump has a unique structure; the center of the rotor was hollow and the blood passes through this hollow region(the enclosed-impeller). In this paper, an enclosed-impeller was designed for the axial flow blood pump. The velocity and pressure distributions in the enclosed-impeller were evaluated using computational fluid dynamics(CFD)analysis. A pressure head was calculated from the pressure distribution of each analysis and the values obtained were compared with the results of in-vitro experiments. We did not find any turbulence in the enclosed-impeller from the results of the velocity distribution. By comparing the pressure heads, the values obtained from the CFD analysis were found to be in good agreement with the in-vitro experimental data for rotational speeds in the range8, 000-12, 000rpm. A flow rate of5L/min for a100-mmHg-pressure head was achieved in the in-vitro experiments at a rotational speed of approximately9, 000rpm. The newly developed axial flow blood pump is expected to be used in implantable rotary blood pumps.
