Technical requirements and limitations of miniaturized axial flow pumps for circulatory support.

The engineering principles of rotary blood pumps are elucidated by means of a basic introduction into turbomachinery. Additionally, some important dimensionless quantities which relate to pumping characteristics and pump type are introduced. These theoretical fundamentals are applied to the design of high-speed microaxial pumps, especially the two Hemopump versions. The theoretical estimates clearly show that each pump version has its physical limits, especially at small impeller sizes. It is also demonstrated that not any clinically desirable working point of an axial pump can be achieved with an arbitrarily small pump size.