Abstract
Accurate estimation of turbulent stresses in pulsatile flows is very important in the design of mechanical heart valves to reduce thromboembolism and hemolysis. The flow within the lumen of a fully transparent bileaflet mechanical heart valve model, in the “mitral” position of an in-vitro pulsatile flow loop, is characterized using digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV). A phase-averaging technique is used to obtain the mean velocities and turbulent stresses. The results are compared with those obtained using laser Doppler anemometry which shows good agreement between the two measurement techniques, thereby validating the integrity of the DPIV measurements in the conditionally sampled time dependent flow. Convergence and accuracy issues involving turbulent stress measurements with DPIV in pulsatile flows are addressed in this paper.
Turbulent stress measurements downstream of three bileaflet heart valve designs in pigs☆