• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.458-472
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• 1987

A heart supplies bloods of about 15, 000 liters to each human organ in a day. A normal function of heart valves is necessary to this act of heart. The disease of heart valve develops to a narrowness of a closure, resulting in an abnormal circulation of bloods. In an attempt to eliminate the affliction of heart valves, the operation method to repair with artificial heart valves has been developed and saved numerous patients over past 30 years. This replacement operation has been performed since early 1960`s in Korea, but all the artificial heart valves used are imported from abroad with very high costs until recent years. The artificial heart valve using pyrolytic carbon has been developed at KAIST, which was proved to be stable in the mechanical performance and durability. Therefore, the in viva performance of this valve was examined through animal tests. The artificial heart valves used in this study are tilting disc type valves, in which the disc were made of graphite coated with pyrolytic carbon and the cages were made of titanium. In viva testings of these valves were performed in 12 dogs, in which right ventriculo-pulmonary arterial [Croup I] or inter-aortic [Croup IV] valved conduit was implanted using polytetrafluoroethylene conduits containing KAIST valve and aortic valve [Group II] or pulmonary valve [Croup III] was replaced by a KAIST valve with a 21mm or 19mm tissue annulus diameter. In group I and II, pre-and post-operative transvalvular pressure gradient was measured and compared with other prosthetic valves. During post operative period laboratory examination was performed including hemoglobin, hematocrit, red cell count, white cell, lactic acid dehydrogenase and platelet. The eight surviving dogs were sacrificed and autopsy was performed at 2, 6, and 8 weeks. KAIST valve has low transvalvular gradient and relatively high orifice area. Average ventriculo-aortic peak systolic transvalvular gradient was 14 mmHg in 21 mm valve and 19 mmHg in 19 mm valve. The valve has slight intravascular hemolysis effect. Thrombogenic effect of low polishing quality and eddy currents around small orifice is high. The valve has vulnerability of disc movement. These animal tests suggest that the improvement of the heart valve design, surface polishing state and prescription methods.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.1118-1124
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• 2006

Recently, cavitation on the surface of mechanical heart valve has been studied as a cause of fractures occurring in implanted Mechanical Heart Valves (MHVs). It has been conceived that the MHVs mounted in an artificial heart close much faster than in vivo sue, resulting in cavitation bubbles formation. In this study, six different kinds of mono leaflet and bileaflet valves were mounted in the mitral position in an Electro-Hydraulic Total Artificial Heart (EHTAH), and we investigated the mechanisms for MHV cavitation. The valve closing velocity and a high speed video camera were employed to investigate the mechanism for MHV cavitation. The closing velocity of the bileaflet valves was slower than that of the mono leaflet valves. Cavitation bubbles were concentrated on the edge of the valve stop and along the leaflet tip. It was established that squeeze flow holds the key to MHV cavitation in our study. Cavitation intensity increased with an increase in the valve closing velocity and the valve stop area. With regard to squeeze flow, the bileaflet valve with slow valve-closing velocity and small valve stop areas is better able to prevent blood cell damage than the monoleaflet valves.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1993 no.11
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• pp.81-84
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• 1993

Artificial Heart Valve is the one of the most important artificial organ which has been implanted to many patients. The most important problems related to the artificial heart valve prosthesis are thrombosis and hemolysis. Usual method to test against this problem in vivo experiment, which is complex and hard work. Nowadays the request for In vitro Artificial Heart Valve testing system is increasing. Several papers has announced us flow pattern of Artificial Heart Valve is highly correlated with thrombosis and hemolysis. They usually gel flow pattern by LDA, it is also hard work and has narrow measuring region. In this reason we have determined to develop PTV(Particle Tracking Velocimetry). By using High-speed camera and image processing technique, flow pattern could be relatively easily obtained. Parachute and Bileaflet Artificial Heart Valve designed by SNU were testified.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.617-621
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• 1990

A heart supplies blood of about 15, 000 liters to each human organ in a day. A normal function of heart valves is necessary to accomplish these enormous work of heart. The disease of heart valve develops to a narrowness of a closure, resulting in an abnormal circulation of blood. In an attempt to eliminate the affliction of heart valves, the operative method to replace with artificial heart valves has developed and saved numerous patients over past 30 years. This replacement operation has been performed since early 1960`s in Korea, but all the artificial heart valves used are imported from abroad with very high costs until recent years. New artificial heart valves have been developed in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology since early 1980`s. The first developed valve was designed with a free-floating pyrolytic carbon disk that is suspended in a titanium cage. The design of the valve was tested in vitro, and in animals in 1987. The results from this study was that the eccentrically placed struts creates a major and minor orifice when the disc opens and stagnation of flow in the area of the minor orifice has led to valve thrombosis. In this work, the design of the valve was changed from a single - leaflet valve to double - leaflet one in order to resolve the problems observed in the first - year tests. Morphological and hemodynamic studies were made for the newly designed valves through the in vitro and in vivo tests. The design and partial materials of the artificial heart valve was improved comparing with first - year`s model. The disc in the valve was modified from single - leaflet to bi - leaflet, and the material of the cage was changed from titanium metal to silicon - alloyed pyrolytic carbon. A test was made for the valve in order to examine its mechanical performance and stability. Morphological and hemodynamic studies were made for the valve that had been implanted in tricuspid position of mongrel dogs. All the test animals were observed just before the deaths. A new artificial heart valve was designed and fabricated in order to resolve the problems observed in the old model. The new valve was verified to have good stability and high resistance to wear through the performance tests. The hemodynamic properties of the valve after implantation were also estimated to be good in animal tests. Therefore, the results suggest that the newly designed valve in this work has a good quality in view of the biocompatibility. However, valve thrombosis on valve leaflets and annulus were found. This morphological findings were in accordance with results of surface polishing status studies, indicating that a technique of fine polishing of the surface is necessary to develop a valve with higher quality and performance.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 1992

In thIns paper, a numerical simulation of steady laminar and turbulent flow in a two dimensional model for the total artificial heart is'presented. A trlleaflet polyurethane valve was simulated at the outflow orifice while the Inflow orifice had a trileaflet or a flap valve. The finite analytic numerical method was employed to obtain solutions to the governing equations in the Cartesian coordinates. The closure for turbulence model was achieved by employing the k-$\varepsilon$-E model. The SIMPLER algo rithm was used to solve the problem in primitive variables. The numerical solutions of the slulated model show that regions of relative stasis and trapped vortices were smaller within the ventricular chamber with the flap valve at the Inflow orifice than that with the trileaflet valve. The predicted Reynolds stresses distal to the inflow valve within the ventricular chamber were also found to be smaller wlth the flap valve than with the trlleaflet valve. These resu1ts also suggest a correlation be- tween high turbulent stresses and the presence of thrombus In the vicinity of the valves in the total artificial hearts. The computed velocity vectors and trubulent stresses were comparable with previ ously reported in vitro measurements in artificial heart chambers. Analysis of the numerical solo talons suggests that geometries similar to the flap valve(or a tilting disc valve) results in a better flow dynamics within the total artificial heart chamber compared to a trileaflet valve.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1992 no.05
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• pp.123-126
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• 1992

In this paper, a numerical simulation of steady laminar and turbulent flow in a two dimensional model for the total artificial heart is presented. A trileaflet polyurethane valve was simulated at the outflow orifice while the inflow orifice had a trileaflet or a flap valve. The numerical solutions of the simulated model show that regions of relative stasis and trapped vortices were smaller wi thin the ventricular chamber wi th the flap valve at the inflow orifice than that with the trileaflet valve. The predicted Reynolds stresses distal to the inflow valve within the ventricular chamber were also found to be smaller with the flap valve than with the trileaflet valve. Analysis of the numerical solutions suggests that geometries similar to the flap valve(or a tilting disc valve) results in a better flow dynamics within the total artificial heart chamber compared to a trileaflet valve.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.120-124
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• 2003

Monoleaflet polymer artificial heart valve was known to show remarkable improvement in antithrombosis and pressure drop compared with other type of artificial valve. In this investigation of monoleaflet heart valve the vertical and horizontal deflection pattern of polymer heart valve with three types of supporting members, straight member and two curved members were analysed using the large deformation nonlinear finite element method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.156-163
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• 2005

A monoleaflet polymer artificial heart valve showed the remarkable improvement in pressure drop compared with other types of artificial valve. So, in this study we designed a monoleaflet polymer artificial valve with two supporting members to minimize the deformation and bending stress of the valve with respect to the variation of the gap between two supporting members using nonlinear contact analysis. The marginal valve thickness was also predicted in accordance with the relationship between the thickness and horizontal displacement in order to prevent the dislocation of the valve tip from the frame wall.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2006

The left ventricular filling flow is now considered as an indicator which can be used for early diagnosing of cardiovascular diseases. Because the understanding of left ventricular flow physics is critical for this purpose, the downstream flow characteristics of the artificial heart valve are investigated using particle image velocimetry (PIV) method. In this study, we investigated the wake characteristics of flows passing through three different artificial valves (St.Jude medical bileaflet mechanical valve. Bjork-Shiley monostrut mechanical valve and St.Jude medical Biocor bio valve). The downstream flow field has remarkably altered according to the different valves. SJM MHV has the flow field similar to the pulsating circular jet and BS MHV has oblique pulsating jet. SJM BHV shows the similar flow field of clinical data of normal heart.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• autumn
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• pp.131-134
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• 1999

This paper considers the acoustical characteristics of the mechanical valve employed in the Korean type Artificial Heart. $Bj\"{o}rk-Shiley$ tilting disc valve was chosen for the study and acoustic measurements were performed for the artificial heart operated in a mock circulation system as well as implanted to an animal as a Bi Ventricular Assist Device (BVAD). In the mock system, three different conditions of the valve were examined which were normal, damaged (torn off), pseudothrombus attached. Microphone measurements for the BVAD were carried out at a regular time interval for 5 days after the implantation operation. Of the recorded acoustic emissions from the artificial heart, click sounds mainly originated from the valves were further analyzed using Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) for estimating their spectral properties. It was shown that the spectral peaks below 4 kHz and the optimal order number for MUSIC, equivalent to the number of the spectral component, might be the key parameters which were highly correlated to the physiological states of the valve like the mechanical damage of the valve or the formation of thrombus on the valves.