A simple prototype for pulsatile blood flow using an adjustable centrifugal pump

Heart-lung machines used in open heart surgeries pump the necessary blood with two different types of pumps integrated into them. These pumps are roller or centrifugal pumps. While roller pumps are preferred more frequently in cardiac surgeries due to their ease of use and relatively low cost, centrifugal pumps are preferred in cases where long-term mechanical cardiac support or long-term oxygenation is required. Centrifugal pumps are suitable for longer-term use due to their advantage of causing less damage to the shaped elements of the heart (thrombocytes, leukocytes and erythrocytes) compared to roller pumps. Other flow types of heart-lung machines are pulsatile and non-pulsatile flows which may influence the side-effects of these machines on human body. While non-pulsatile blood flow pumps blood into the body continuously at a constant pressure, pulsatile blood flow pumps blood intermittently, imitating the heart's beating pattern. Therefore, pulsatile blood flow is more physiological and has many benefits over non-pulsatile flow, such as reducing inflammation that may occur in the body and thus reducing the side effects of the heart-lung machine. Although there are many studies on the pulsatile flow using roller pumps, there is no device in daily use that will provide an adjustable pulsatile flow using a centrifugal pump. There are very few experimental studies on centrifugal pumps providing pulsatile flow in which the frequency and flow rate of the pulsatile flow was often kept constant. Currently, no device that can adjust the desired frequency and flow rate has yet entered the routine use. Thus, the aim of this project is to design a simple prototype of such a centrifugal blood pump that will provide pulsatile blood flow which will be adjusted in terms of frequency and flow rate.