An Experimental Study of the Flow-Induced Mass Transfer Distribution in the Vicinity of Prosthetic Heart Valves

Abstract

An experimental study of the flow-induced mass transfer distribution in the vicinity of a model disk valve and a ball valve was conducted using electrochemical techniques. Reynolds numbers ranged from 1000 to 6000, which are characteristic of physiologic conditions. Local instantaneous and time average data are presented. It was found that the flow-induced mass transfer distribution was high in regions of both low and high shear. It was also demonstrated that the fluctuations in the mass transfer to the wall of the test section around the valve are significantly affected by valve design. The regions of high mass transfer measured in this study were found to correlate very closely to regions where thrombus formations have been documented in in-vivo studies.