Analysis of fluid forces impacting on the impeller of a mixed flow blood pump with computational fluid dynamics

This study presents four different impeller designs to compare hydrodynamic forces. Numerical simulation studies are performed via computational fluid dynamics to specify and investigate the hydraulic forces impacting the impeller of the mixed-flow blood pump with a volute. The design point of this pump is that the flow rate is 5 L/min, the rotational speed is 8000 rpm, and the manometric head is 100 mmHg. The designed impellers are placed in the same volute and simulation studies are performed with the same mesh size (17.3 million cells) of the pumps. The simulation studies have been conducted in setting 1050 kg/m³ blood density, 35 cP fluid viscosity, and SST-kω turbulence model. Additionally, this study examines the changes in hydraulic forces and hydraulic efficiency with fluid viscosity. As a result of experimental simulation studies, the highest hydraulic efficiencies of 40.87% and 39.5% are achieved in the case of the shaftless-grooveless and shafted-grooveless impeller, respectively. The maximum axial forces are obtained from the pump with the shaftless-grooveless impeller. Whereas radial forces, maximum values are calculated in the pump with the shaftless-outer groove impeller for all flow rates. Finally, the wall shear stresses, which are important for blood pump designs, are evaluated and the maximum value of 227 Pa is observed in the pump impeller with a shaftless-grooved.