A New Magnetic Sealless Coupling Axial Flow Blood Pump

For rotating blood pump, the sealing problem is a very important one to solve. In this paper, it was introduced that we designed and made a small axial flow pump, applying the magnetic coupling method. The pump consisted of two pump housings, a brushless DC motor, an impeller with five wanes, a pair of magnetic discs, a spacer, an inlet and an outlet areas , bearings, a support frame, and etc. The pump is made of titanium and is 125 mm length, 147 ml volume, total 380g of weight. Performances of outputting, sealing, heat creating and damage to blood by the pump were investigated in vitro experiment. Results showed for external experiment that: (1)The pressure created by the pump was 90 mmHg, the flow rates were 1.2 L/min, 4 L/min, 5.9 L/min and 7.8 L/min correspondingly to 5000 rpm, 6000 rpm, 7000 rpm and 8000rpm rotation speeds. The hydrodynamic performance of the axial flow blood pump was enough to meet a patient need when the blood pump was used as a left ventricular assistant device. (2)The hemolysis test was studied by the normalized index of hemolysis(NIH). The NIH result of the axial flow pump was 0.08 g/100 L. (3)The outside temperature of the pump didnt change obviously in 120 hours of rotation, and the sealing function was very well.