Construction of an artificial heart pump performance test system.

A hydraulic loop, which simulates pressure/flow response of the human circulatory system, is needed to bench test the various versions of rotary left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). This article describes the design of such a loop and the simulated response of different physiological states, such as a healthy person in sleep, rest, and mild physical activity, and in different pathological states. The loop consists of: (1) pulsatile left and right cardiac simulators; (2) air/water tanks to model the venous and arterial compliances; (3) tygon tubes to model the venous, arterial, and other system flow resistances; and (4) a tuning clamp to model the variation in system resistance characteristics under different cardiac pressure/flow conditions. The simulated responses were compared to the data found in the literature to validate the loop performance prior to LVAD testing.