Title: Effect of rotor blade angle and clearance on blood flow through a non-pulsatile, axial, heart pump

Authors: Matthew D. Sinnott, Paul W. Cleary

Addresses: CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics, Private Bag 33, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia. ' CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics, Private Bag 33, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia

Abstract: This study involves simulation of blood flow through a non-pulsatile, axial pump consisting of a complex multi-sectioned impeller with rotating and stationary components, and a stationary housing. We use a particle-based method, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), to investigate the effects of varying the impeller blade pitch angle and the gap size between the rotor and housing. We show that the impeller blade inclination affects pump performance and the level of shear-related blood damage. The inclusion of a rotor-housing clearance results in flow losses that reduce the efficiency of the pump but also reduce the viscous energy losses in the pump.

Keywords: SPH; smoothed particle hydrodynamics; blood flow; cardiac assistance; LVAD; axial flow pumps; rotor blade angle; rotor-housing clearance; non-pulsatile heart pumps; simulation; impellers; pump performance; shear related blood damage; viscous energy loss; ventricular assist devices; CFD; computational fluid dynamics.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2010.035363

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2010 Vol.10 No.5/6, pp.300 - 306

Published online: 26 Sep 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article