An Artificial Heart System for Testing and Evaluation of Cardiac Pacemakers

The usability assessment of a pacemaker is a complex task where the dedicated programmer for testing programmed algorithms is necessary.This paper provides the outcomes of development and complex testing of the artificial cardiac system to evaluate the pacemaker’s functionality.In this work,we used the modular laboratory platform ELVIS II and created graphical user interface in LabVIEW programming environment.The electrical model of the heart allows signals generation(right atrium,right ventricle)and the monitoring of the stimulation pulses.The LabVIEW user interface allows to set the parameters of the generated signals and the simulation of the cardiac rhythm disorders as well as the monitoring and visualization of the pacemaker behavior in real-time.The results demonstrate the capability of proposed system to evaluate the paced and sensed pulses.The proposed solution allows the scientists to test the behavior of any cardiac pacemaker for its pre-programmed settings and pacing mode.In addition,the proposed system can simulate various disorders and test cardiac pacemakers in different working modes.

On the understanding of dielectric elastomer and its application for all-soft artificial heart

Although dielectric elastomer(DE)with substantial actuated strain(AS)has been reported 20 years ago,its scientific understanding remains unclear.The most accepted theory of DE,which is proposed in 2000,holds the view that AS of DE is induced by the Maxwell stress.According to this theory,materials have similar ratios of permittivity and Young’s modulus should have similar AS,while the experimental results are on contrary to this theory,and the experimental AS has no relationship with ideal AS.Here,a new dipole-conformation-actuated strain cross-scale model is proposed,which can be generally applied to explain the AS of DE without pre-strain.According to this model,several characteristics of an ideal DE are listed in this work and a new DE based on polyphosphazene(PPZ)is synthesized.The AS of PPZ can reach 84%without any pre-strain.At last,a PPZ-based all soft artificial heart(ASAH)is built,which works in the similar way with natural myocardium,indicating that this material has great application potential and possibility in the construction of an ASAH for heart failure(HF)patients.

人工心脏临床应用研究(英文)

Objective:To summarize practical experiences of clinical application of artificial heart and discuss its indications and prevention of complications. Methods: Before operation, all the four patients underwent regular treatment of internal medicine, and after its failure they were implanted with artificial hearts. Operations were performed under general anesthesia and external circulation at low temperature. Left ventricle assistant devices (LVAD) were used for three patients, and double ventricle assistant device (DVAP) for one. Two patients were embeded with Berlin artificial hearts (Melipot company). The other two were implanted with Medos artificial hearts ( Medos company). Results:All the patients had no infection and haemorrhage, while their cardiac functions were restored apparently. Three to five days after operation, patients could take off- bed activities. Two had been taken away their artificial hearts on 52th and 53th postoperative day, and arrhythmia disappeared. Half year follow- up revealed favorable results. One died,on 271st day,of bleeding from congenital cerebrovascular deformity. One died, on 10th postoperative day, of renal dysfunction and DIC. Conclusion: Artificial heart or Ventricle assistant devices (VAD) could be used as temporary substitute for heart transplantation, and used in emergent heart attacks in order to restore cardiac function.

Damage Tolerance Design of Artificial Mechanical Heart Valve Holder

To study the conservative life of the artificial mechanical heart valve holder,CATIA software was used for modeling,and ABAQUS finite element analysis was used to analyze the stress of the valve holder in the complex environment of the human body and the residual thermal stress during production and processing.The damage tolerance method based on fracture mechanics analyzes the maximum initial crack size that the heart valve holder can tolerate under the premise that the structural safety life is longer than the life of the implanted patient.The results show that the maximum initial crack size is only tens of microns;the traditional S/N life analysis can only obtain non-conservative life,and the damage tolerance method is the basic requirement for analyzing the life and quality control of artificial mechanical heart valves.

Systematical Experiment for Optimal Design of Vibrating Flow Pump with Jelly-fish Valve

The fundamental characteristics and the flow mechanism of a Vibrating Flow Pump （VFP） with a jelly-fish valve, which can be applied to a novel artificial heart, were studied theoretically and experimentally. By using water as the working fluid, the measurement methodology for the typical unsteady flow for VFP was developed here. The effects of the frequency, amplitude and inner diameter of the vibrating pipe, and thickness of the silicone rubber sheet of the jelly-fish valve on the basic per- formance of VFP were systematically investigated. A high-speed observation technique and simple theoretical model analysis were also introdueed for further detailed discussion. Quantitative contributions of the individual parameters to the pumping performance were shown through the experiment, which would give us essential knowledge for establishing design criteria of VFE The theoretical model, which agreed with the experiment and the high-speed observation, elucidated the pumping mechanism with respect to the role of inertia of the inner fluid.

Determination of Anisotropic Factors of Pyrolytic Carbon by Electron Diffraction

The preferred orientation of pyrolytic carbon coating is an important performance parameter for the safe use of artificial mechanical heart valve.In this paper,the selected area electron diffraction(SAED)analysis of pyrolytic carbon coating samples of artificial heart valve was carried out by transmission electron microscopy(TEM),and the experimental method of characterizing the preferred orientation of pyrolytic carbon by electron diffraction spectrum,namely bacon anisotropy factor(BAF),was described,and the orientation angle and BAF corresponding to the electron diffraction spectrum were measured.The results show that the BAF value can directly reflect the anisotropy of pyrolytic carbon in the selected area.The BAF value range is from 1 to infinity,and the higher the preferred orientation is,the greater the value is.The BAF value decreases exponentially with the increase of orientation angle.When the pyrolytic carbon tends to be isotropic,the orientation angle tends to 180 and the BAF value tends to 1.