To Test Artificial Hearts
Mock Circulatory System Developed at PSU
Engineers at Penn State have
developed a new mock cir
culatory system to evaluate
artifical hearts before they are
implanted in animals.
It uses hardware—pistons, flat
steel plates, plastic tubes, etc.—
to simulate the conditions present
in the animal’s body. And it
circulates a thick clear fluid
instead of blood.
Dr. John Brighton, associate
professor of mechanical
engineering, will report on the
new system at a symposium of
the Japan Society of Mechanical
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Engineers in Tokyo this Sep
tember and at the Joint
Automatic Controls Conference
at Stanford University in Agust.
The work is part of a twelve
man project aimed at the
development of an artifical heart
being conducted in cooperation
with Penn State’s Hershey
Medical Center. Principal in
vestigator there is Dr. William S.
Pierce, a specialist in cardian
surgery.
Plastic artifical hearts
fabricated at Hershey must be
tested prior to implant in
L. H. Brubaker
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397-5179
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Lititz
626-7766
Dr. John Brighton demonstrates the Unique feature is piston, which expands
Penn State mock circulatory system and contracts to store blood in imitation of
designed by him to test artificial hearts the aorta in the body.
(lower foreground) before implantation.
animals. They must be coupled to
a mock circulatory system so
their performance—in terms of
the delivery of blood—can be
evaluated.
Systems currently in use by
heart-development researchers,
according to Dr. Brighton, “are
either too complex and in
convenient to operate or so
simple that they do not
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 5,1972
adequately simulate
physiological conditions.”
Dr. Brighton, Dr. W. M
Phillips and graduate student
Gus Rosenberg designed and
built the new system with partial
support from the Pennsylvania
Science and Engineering
Foundation.
Some twenty pairs of ven
tricles—the heart’s pumps —
f&r
being made at Hershey will be
tested on the new apparatus
before being implanted in calves.
the
The Penn State mock cir
culatory system sits on top of a
small table in Dr Brighton’s
laboratory.
A clear fluid having the same
viscosity as blood is pumped
through the system by plastic
ventricles whose beat rate is
maintained pneumatically • by
air or other gas under pressue.
A key feature of the Penn State
system is its pistons, which
represent the aortal chambers
near the heart.
“The aorta’s variable
(Continued On Page 30)
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