Effect of wall hardness on hemolysis

One of the major problems for artificial organs to develop and to improve is the reduction of hemolysis. The optimum designing of less hemolysis artificial organs is achieved through computational analysis and flow visualization techniques. However, it is impossible to know the quantitative relation between hemolysis and these analytic data. Thus, in vitro studies were performed to estimate these devices on hemolysis because there is no standard for designing these devices with less hemolysis. Therefore, it is essential to reveal the relation between blood flow behaviors and hemolysis. Previous studies reported that hemolysis was caused by a combination of physical factors. In particular, shear stress, pressure, and other fluid dynamical effects were shown to induce hemolysis. In another fluid dynamical experiment reported, the collision flow against the sanded wall was considered the most important factor that directly effected blood damage, which led to hemolysis. The blood flow impact of the collision against the wall effected serious damage to red blood cells. The objective of this study was to point out the relationship between physical force (pressure) in collision flow and hemolysis. In vitro tests using bovine blood and a circulation model that included a jet flow that collides against a wall were conducted. In these tests, we changed the material of the wall by replacing silicone rubber of various thicknesses. The thickness of the silicone rubber is inversely proportional to its hardness. The results show that the increasing rate of hemolysis was lower when the surface was coated by silicone rubber. In conclusion, we considered that it is possible to reduce hemolysis by adjusting the hardness of the material and contacted blood flow.