R&D of a Pulsatile Rotary Heart Pump Imitating the Native Ventricle

Abstract

It is evident that a pulsatile flow is important for blood circulation because the flow pulsatility can reduce the resistance of peripheral vessels. It is difficult, however, to produce a pulsatile flow with an impeller pump, since blood damage will occur when a pulsatile flow is produced. Further investigation has revealed that the main factor for blood damage is turbulence shear, which tears the membranes of red blood cells, resulting in free release of haemoglobin into the plasma, and consequently lead to haemolysis. Therefore, the question for producing a pulsatile flow with low haemolysis becomes how to develop a pulsatile impeller pump with less turbulence? The authors have successively developed a pulsatile axial pump and a pulsatile centrifugal pump. In the pulsatile axial pump, the impeller reciprocates axially and rotates simultaneously. The reciprocation is driven by a pneumatic device and the rotation by a DC motor. For a pressure of 40mm Hg pulsatility, about 50mm axially reciprocation amplitude of the impeller is desirable. In order to reduce the axial amplitude, the pump inlet and the impeller both have cone-shaped heads, thus the gap between the impeller and the inlet pipe changes by only 2mm, that is, the impeller reciprocates up to 2mm, a pressure pulsatility of 40mmHg can be produced. As the impeller rotates with a constant speed, low turbulence in the pump can be expected. In the centrifugal pulsatile pump, the impeller changes its rotating speed periodically; the turbulence is reduced by designing an impeller with twisted vanes which enable the blood flow to change its direction rather than its magnitude during the periodic change of the rotating speed. In this way, a pulsatile flow is produced and the turbulence is minimized. Compared to the axial pulsatile pump, the centrifugal pulsatile pump needs only one driver and thus has more application possibilities. The centrifugal pulsatile pump has been used in animal experiments. The pump assisted the circulation of calves for several months without harm to the blood elements and the organ functions of the experimental animal. The experiments demonstrated that the pulsatile impeller is the most efficient pump for assisting heart recovery, because it can produce a pulsatile flow like a diaphragm pump and has no back flow as what occurs in a non-pulsatile rotary pump; the former reduces the circulatory resistance and the later increases the diastole pressure in aorta, and thus increase the perfusion of coronary arteries of the natural heart.