Assembly and control of a pulsatile mock circulation

Abstract

The rapid aging of global population in synergy with a constant deterioration of nutrition quality and lifestyle choices in the last decades has resulted in a massive increase in patients suffering from acute cardiovascular diseases. This means that more and more people are in need of mechanical support systems as part of their medical treatment. A large category of these systems is ventricular assist devices (VAD) which main function is to increase the blood perfusion in the organs of people with critically reduced stroke volume. The aim of this thesis work was to assembly and control a modular pulsatile mock circulation circuit that will simulate the conditions existing in the systemic circulation of the human body and be used to test the performance of VADs. A system was designed and built that was able to achieve aortic flows up to 4 L/min under physiological aortic and ventricular pressure values in a range of heart rates from 40 to 150 bpm with the option to retrieve these values in real time and post process them for further analysis. In addition to that pathological conditions could be simulated by alternating parameters such as the vascular compliances and resistances and the motor profile building the pressure differential into the hydraulic system.