Dependence of tissue valve leaflet motion on the viscosity of blood analogue fluid.

The dependence of the leaflet motion of bioprosthetic heart valves on the viscosity of the blood analogue fluid was studied in this work. A pericardial and a porcine tissue valve were mounted in a pulse duplicator and high-speed films were taken to record the motion of the valve leaflets. The blood analogue fluids used were physiological saline with a viscosity coefficient of 1.0 cP, and glycerol solution with a viscosity of 3.5 cP. The transvalvular pressure drop and percentage of regurgitation were also measured with the time-averaged flow rate maintained at 6.00 +/- 0.05 litres/min. Our results show that the leaflets did not stiffen with up to 15 days' exposure to glycerol. Also, there was no substantial difference in the time of opening of the leaflets or in the area of opening of the valves with the two blood analogue fluids. However, the leaflets closed substantially later in the cardiac cycle in the case of glycerol solution, owing to the interaction between the leaflets and the viscosity of the fluid. For proper comparison of the flow dynamics past prosthetic valves at comparable Reynolds number and Womersley number, our results suggest that glycerol solution should be used as the blood analogue fluid for tissue valves also.