Cfd analysis of a maglev centrifugal lvad

PURPOSE HeartMate III is an implantable LVAD designed for permanent use. This abstract describes recent studies aimed at characterizing flows within the maglev centrifugal blood pump. METHODS The hydrodynamic features of the pump were originally designed using empirical methods. Specifically, a centrally open rotor separated from the pump housing by 0.6 – 1.5 mm gaps was chosen to promote good washing and minimize thrombogenesis within the pump. Subsequent 3D CFD analyses using an unstructured mesh of 325K nodes and 1.4M cells and a Navier-Stokes solver in Fluent 6.0 were performed at simulated low (3 lpm), normal (7 lpm), and high (10 lpm) steady laminar flow conditions. RESULTS The computational results demonstrate excellent washing of the rotor inlet and rotor well by virtue of an unsteady vortex within the centrally open rotor and pressure-driven backflows in the rotor-housing gaps. CONCLUSIONS These findings are consistent with clean pumps explanted from an extensive series of chronic in vivo studies. Future work includes unsteady flow CFD analyses and experimental validation using PIV flow visualization.