THE HYDROGEN BUBBLE TECHNIQUE - AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE STUDY OF THROMBUS FORMATION ON THE BILEAFLET VALVE WITH CAMBERED PROFILE

摘要

The hydrogen bubble technique was developed by many researchers and applied in various fluid mechanics problems. [1-2] But, to the author's knowledge, owing to some difficulties, the application in biofluid dynamics is not popular yet. C.S.F.Lee and L. Tallot used this method for mitral valve[3]. In designing mechanical heart valves, it was noticed that thrombus formation on the prostheses is vital and may lead to immediate death of patients, which in turn was strongly affected by the hemodynamics around the valves[4-6]. It was on this background, the author developed the hydrogen bubbles technique for the study of steady flow around a bileaflet valve with cambered profile in quasi-physiological flow condition. Velocity distributions are obtained and visualization is realized.