The Design of a Piezoelectric Heart Assist Device

A piezoelectric heart assist device was designed, and preliminary tests were performed in vitro and in vivo. The device has the advantages of simple construction, low power consumption (approximately one watt), electrical rather than pneumatic drive, and noiseless operation. The device consists of piezoelectric bender elements forming two cantilevers. A unique feature of the device is that two tungsten alloy masses, 0.44 kg each, were added to the free ends of the cantilevers to reduce the resonant frequency to 2.5 Hz. The driving voltage was a 320 V peak-to-peak square wave synchronized with a paced heartbeat.