Design and testing of a new radial pulsation simulator

The importance of measuring and simulating a radial pulsation is steadily increased in medical science area, because the radial pulsation is a surrogate maker to estimate a central aortic pressure waveform which is clinically imperative for predicting cardiovascular diseases. Due to technical limits, mathematical relationship between the central and radial pressures has not been reliably demonstrated. Hence, we developed a new radial pulsation simulator prototype similar to a human cardiovascular system. The proposed radial pulsation simulator consists of a ventricular part, an atrial part, an aorta part and a radial arterial part. The central and radial pressure waveforms measured by built-in pressure sensors show similar waveforms with a human's pressure. The developed radial pulsation simulator could replicate pressure waves similar to those of the human body. The results show that the developed simulator has potentials to create both the central and radial pressure waveform, simultaneously in further works. It implies the simulator can be applied to validate the generalized transfer function between the central and radial pressures.