An experiment on aortic pressure wave in a mechanical ciculatory system

A mechanical circulatory system(MCS) has been developed in order to evaluate artificial organs including artificial blood pumps and artificial prosthetic heart valves. The MCS contains a fluid circuit, drive and measuring devices. It is necessary that the fluid circuit consists of an artificial atrium, a ventricle and an aorta which are physically and functionally identical to those of the natural system. The purpose of this study was to examine characteristics of the aortic pressure wave. The aorta was made of silicone and was encased in acrylic. Catheter-tip pressure manometers were used to measure aortic pressure at two different locations separated by a distance of 100 mm. Pulse wave velocity(PWV) was calculated by measuring the time taken by the pressure wave to travel the distance between these two locations. As a result the range of measured PWV was 7 to 16 m/s which increased in accordance with aortic pressure at the diastolic phase. This pattern was close to that observed in the natural aorta.