The bionic actuation and experimental study of a heart simulator

Abstract

Static heart phantom cannot provide a realistic human heart's information under movement state and the medical image lacking of intuitionism is unable to provide a real operation training environment. In order to create a lifelike heart beating environment realistically, a unique air pressure cavity is designed between the heart phantom's fibrous pericardium and artificial myocardium. Based on Windkessel model, a novel actuation circuit is also designed to pump air into/out off the cavity to drive the artificial myocardium contraction and relaxation at certain rhythm. The simulator's output flow testing experiment was carried out to evaluate its performance. Results showed that its output blood flow curves showed as periodical pulsation. It is much similar to the pulse output characteristic of human heart. When the heart simulator operated at a rate of 75 beats per minute, its cardiac output was 5L and stroke volume was about 66mL. The results indicated that the heart simulator can highly simulate the heart beating process. Besides, the blood flow changes of the heart simulator were conformed to the human physiological parameters