Analysis on the effects of pulsation induced flow in mechanical circulatory support system / Nazirul Izzati Rosli

Impedance pump is a valve less pump emerging from the blood circulatory system of human that function without blade or propeller to transfer fluid. The impedance pump offers good characteristics as valve less pump to overcome clinical issues such as blood cell damaged by the rotational blades used in mechanical circulatory support system. Thus, this research is to analyse the flow rate performance in valve less impedance pumps which generates a unidirectional flow of fluid around closed loop of soft viscoelastic tubing inspired by Liebau phenomenon. An experimental setup was prepared that consist of rigid and elastic tube with outer compression mechanism to generate wave flow at various frequencies. Parameters such as frequency, elastic tube diameter, pinching position and fluid viscosity were analysed to describe the influence on the flow rate throughout the experiment. Then, double compression on elastic tube section was performed to compare with single compression experiment. The difference on the flow rate was discussed further. To provide uniform and sequence compression, a DC electric motor was utilized as to convert rotational to vertical pinching. A long elastic balloon was used for elastic section with various diameter (32 mm, 16 mm, and 10 mm).