Quantitative Evaluation of Blood Damage in a Centrifugal VAD by Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

This study explores a quantitative evaluation of blood damage that occurs in a continuous flow left ventricular assist device (LVAD) due to fluid stress. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is used to track the shear stress history of 388 particle streaklines. The accumulation of shear and exposure time is integrated along the streaklines to evaluate the levels of blood trauma. This analysis, which includes viscous and turbulent stresses, provides a statistical estimate of possible damage to cells flowing through the pump. Since experimental data for hemolysis levels in our LVAD are not available, in vitro normalized index of hemolysis values for clinically available ventricular assist devices were compared to our damage indices. This approach allowed for an order of magnitude comparison between our estimations and experimentally measured hemolysis levels, which resulted in a reasonable correlation. This work ultimately demonstrates that CFD is a convenient and effective approach to analyze the Lagrangian behavior of blood in a heart assist device.