Particle image velocimetry experimental and computational investigation of a blood pump

Blood pumps have been adopted to treat heart failure over the past decades. A novel blood pump adopting the rotor with splitter blades and tandem cascade stator was developed recently. A particle image velocimetry (PIV) experiment was carried out to verify the design of the blood pump based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and further analyze the flow properties in the rotor and stator. The original sized pump model with an acrylic housing and an experiment loop were constructed to perform the optical measurement. The PIV testing was carried out at the rotational speed of 6952±50 r/min with the flow rate of 3.1 l/min and at 8186±50 r/min with 3.5 l/min, respectively. The velocity and the Reynolds shear stress distributions were investigated by PIV and CFD, and the comparisons between them will be helpful for the future blood pump design.