Numerical study on the performance of centrifugal blood pump with superhydrophobic surface.

Aim: In order to reduce the blood damage of an artificial heart pump and optimize its hydraulic performance, a centrifugal blood pump with superhydrophobic characteristics is proposed in this study.

Methods: To study the influence of superhydrophobic surface characteristics on the performance of centrifugal blood pumps, the Navier slip model is used to simulate the slip characteristics of superhydrophobic surfaces, which is realized by the user defined function of ANSYS fluent. The user defined functions with different values of slip length are verified by two benchmark solutions of laminar flow and turbulence in the pipeline. The blood pump model adopts the designed centrifugal blood pump, and its head, hydraulic efficiency and hemolysis index are calculated. The Navier slip boundary condition (a constant slip-length of 50 μm) is applied to the walls of the blood pump impeller and a volute at different positions, and the influence of the superhydrophobic surface on the performance of the blood pump at the design point  = 6 L/min was compared and analyzed.

Results: The results show that the centrifugal blood pump model used in this paper has good blood compatibility and meets the design requirements; the superhydrophobic surface can significantly reduce the scalar shear stress in the blood pump. At the design point, when the slip length is 50 μm, the mass-average scalar shear stress in the impeller area and the volute area reduction rate is about 5.9%, the hydraulic efficiency growth rate is about 3.8%, the hemolysis index reduction rate is about 18.4%, and the pressure head changes little with a growth rate of 0.3%.

Conclusions: Centrifugal blood pumps with superhydrophobic surfaces can improve the efficiency of blood pumps and reduce hemolysis. Based on these encouraging results, vitro investigations for actual blood damage would be practicable.