Magnetic levitation for rotary blood pumps in Ventricular Assist Devices
For patients suffering from heart failure, Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD) are often the last alternative to a donor heart. However, today’s VAD-Systems do not meet the requirements of wear-freeness, redundancy, weight and dimension for being a broadly established, permanent solution. To make allowance for this, the drive is implemented as a BLDC motor with disc-type rotor, driving a radial flow pump. A combination of passive permanent magnetic and hydrodynamic bearings achieves a wear-free operation, while simultaneously increasing reliability and reducing dimensions. Initial in-vivo analysis of a prototype revealed promising results.