aor_1050 145..156 A Strain-Based Flow-Induced Hemolysis Prediction Model Calibrated by In Vitro Erythrocyte Deformation Measurements

Abstract: Hemolysis is caused by fluid stresses in flows within hypodermic needles, blood pumps, artificial hearts, and other cardiovascular devices. Developers of cardiovas-cular devices may expend considerable time and effort in testing of prototypes, because there is currently insufficient understanding of how flow-induced cell damage occurs to accurately predict hemolysis. The objective of this project was to measure cell deformation in response to a range of flow conditions, and to develop a constitutive model corre-lating cell damage to fluid stresses.An experimental system was constructed to create Poiseuille flow under a micro-scope with velocities up to 4 m/s, Reynolds number to 200, and fluid stresses to 5000 dyn/cm2. Pulsed laser illumination and a digital camera captured images of cells deformed by the flow. Equilibrium equations were developed to relat