[Pressure measurements of pneumatically driven artificial ventricles]

In the mock circulation are investigated methods for pressure measurement developed especially for the application on artificial ventricles. They require the in-vivo-confirmation in the long-term experiment. An exact analysis of the pressure curves gives information about the absolute measuring values and also about the function of the pump itself, such as about the points of reaching the final positions of the pump membrane. Via a control related to this in the "full stroke" mode with ejection of the complete stroke volume, when the stand-still times of the membrane are minimized, in addition to this the atrial pressures and the cardiac output can be determined. Eventual non-linearities in the lower pressure region (less than or equal to 0.5 kPa) are not essential in the measurement of the ventricular pressure with amplitudes of 20-25 kPa on the left side and are not investigated in detail.