A NEW PULSATILE BLOOD PUMP FOR ADULT CARDIOPULMONARY BYPASS - DESIGN CRITERIA AND PRELIMINARY FLUID DYNAMIC EVALUATION

A new pulsatile pumping device for adult cardiopulmonary bypass has be en designed. Its main characteristic consists in having a fully dispos able pumping head, since polymeric materials have been adopted for the housing as well as for the built-in inlet and outlet valves. Furtherm ore, the valves show an innovative design, as they are ring-shaped and accomplish their task by virtue of their elastic deformability The de sign phase of the pumping head and the first fluid dynamic evaluations have been performed by numerical methods. Particularly a three-dimens ional CAD model of the pumping head (in the current configuration) is presented in this paper. On the basis of this model, computational flu id dynamic analysis of the hydraulic behaviour has been performed for some components. The obtained results show complex velocity patterns i n the pumping chamber during the filling phase as well as limited pres sure gradients across the inlet valve.