Hemolysis assessment of heart pumps is necessary to be carried out before progressing to clinical trials. Blood pump hemolysis assessment standards, such as ASTM F1830 and F1841, were initially based on continuous flow pumps and included the pulsatile flow pumps later in 2019. However, a lack of guidance on the test rig design results in diverse rigs being applied in literature and companies. An aluminum-profile-based rig, which was named the old rig in this study, was created based on Gräf’s mock loop for pulsatile flow pumps in the literature. Nevertheless, this rig was without a user-friendly interface for blood-filling and de-airing, and it led to a risk of blood leakage, more effort required, and a chance of more hemolysis induced during the processes. Thus, this thesis aims to create a new rig for pulsatile flow pumps and improve its usability for blood filling and de-airing. To achieve the goals, a new rig design concept and its prototype were generated through the design thinking process. Next, user experience testings with the tasks, rig filling, de-airing, and emptying, were given to 5 users to validate if the features of the new rig could satisfy the user needs and improve the usability in terms of efficiency and user satisfaction. Lastly, two blood tests were conducted with the paired rigs, the old rig, and the new rig, based on the same pulsatile flow pump prototypes to investigate the impact of the new system layout on the hemolysis assessment. The results from the user experience testing showed that the new rig had a higher efficiency mainly based on the positive qualitative feedback of the users. The average satisfaction scores in all three tasks were higher on the new rig than on the old rig. Furthermore, the new rig did not induce more hemolysis than the old rig based on the two blood tests. Though the results were not statistically significant, the new rig could be a potential reference for a new standard of hemolysis testing on pulsatile blood pumps with user-friendly blood filling and de-airing processes. / Hemolys bedömning av hjärtpumpar är nödvändigt att utföras innan fortsättning till kliniska tester. Blodpump hemolys bedömning standarder, såsom ASTM F1830 och F1841, var initialt baserade på kontinuerliga flödespumpar, men sedan 2019 har även pulserande pumpar blivit inkluderadeDock, ingen klar vägledning av test rigg design, resulterar i att diverse riggar har använts i litteraturen och företag. En aluminiumprofilbaserad rigg, som i denna studie fick namnet den gamla riggen, skapades utifrån Gräfs mock loop för pulserande flödespumpar i litteraturen. Ändå saknade denna rigg ett användarvänligt gränssnitt för blodfyllning och avluftning, och det ledde till risk för blodläckage, mer ansträngning som krävdes och en chans att mer hemolys inducerades under processerna. Således, syftet med denna avhandling är att skapa en ny rigg för pulserade flödespumpar och förbättra användbarheten för blodfyllning och avluftning. För att uppnå målet, generades en ny rigg design koncept och dess prototyp genom designtänkande processen. Sedan, gavs följande användarupplevelse uppgifter, riggfyllning, avluftning och tömning till 5 användare för att validera om funktionerna på den nya riggen kunde uppfylla användarens behov och förbättra användbarheten gällande effektivitet och användarnöjdhet. Slutligen, genomfördes två försök med blod med de parade riggarna, gamla riggen och den nya riggen, baserat på samma pulserade flödespump prototyp för att undersöka det nya systemets layout påverkan på hemolys bedöming. Resultatet från användarupplevelse försöken visade att den nya riggen hade högre effektivitet vilket främst baserades på den kvalitativa återkopplingen från användarna. Den genomsnittliga tillfredsställelsen i alla tre uppgifter var högre med den nya riggen än med gamla riggen. Det var ingen ökning av hemolys i den nya riggen, baserat på de två blodförsöken. Trots att resultaten inte var statiskt säkerställt, så visade det sig vara en potentiell referens för en ny standard för hemolystestning på pulserade blodpumpar med användarvänliga blodfyllnings- och avluftningsprocesser.

<p dir="ltr">Fretting wear occurs when two contacting bodies under load are subjected to small amplitude oscillatory motion. Depending on the applied normal load, displacement amplitude, coefficient of friction and resulting shear force, two types of fretting wear regimes exist – (i) partial slip and (ii) gross slip. At displacement amplitudes higher than gross slip condition, sliding wear regime prevails. Fretting wear becomes dominant in machine components subject to vibrations such as bearings, dovetail joints, etc. whereas sliding wear is observed in brakes, piston-ring applications, etc. The work in this dissertation primarily focuses on characterizing the material response of various machine components subjected to fretting and sliding wear regimes.</p><p dir="ltr">At first, the friction and fretting wear behavior of inlet ring and spring clip components used in land-based gas turbines was investigated at elevated (<a href="" target="_blank">500°C</a>) temperature. In order to achieve this objective, a novel high-temperature fretting wear apparatus was designed and developed to simulate the conditions existing in a gas turbine. The test apparatus was used to investigate fretting wear of atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) Cr₃C₂-NiCr (25% wt.), high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) sprayed Cr₃C₂-NiCr (25% wt.), HVOF sprayed T-800 and APS sprayed PS400 coated inlet rings against HVOF-sprayed Cr₃C₂-NiCr (25% wt.) coated spring clip. The PS400 coated inlet rings demonstrated a significant reduction in friction and wear. A finite element (FE) framework was also developed to simulate fretting wear in HVOF-sprayed Cr₃C₂-NiCr composite cermet coating. The material microstructure was modelled using Voronoi tessellations with a log-normal distribution of grain size. Moreover, the individual material phases in the coating were randomly assigned to resemble the microstructure from an actual SEM micrograph. A damage mechanics based cohesive zone model with grain deletion algorithm was used to simulate debonding of the ceramic carbide phase from the matrix and resulting degradation from repeated fretting cycles. The specific wear rate obtained from the model for the existing material microstructure was benchmarked against experiments. Novel material microstructures were also modeled and demonstrated to show less scatter in wear rate.</p><p dir="ltr">Following, a three-dimensional (3D) continuum damage mechanics (CDM) FE model was developed to investigate the effects of fretting wear on rolling contact fatigue (RCF) of bearing steels. In order to determine the fretting scar geometry, a 3D arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) adaptive mesh (AM) FE model was developed to simulate fretting wear between two elastic bodies for different initially pristine fretting pressures (0.5, 0.75 and 1 GPa) and friction coefficients (0.15, 0.175 and 0.25) resulting in stick zone to contact width ratios, c/a = 0.35, 0.55 and 0.75. The resulting wear profiles were subjected to various initially pristine RCF pressures (1, 2.2 and 3.4 GPa). The pressure profiles for RCF were determined by moving the contact over the fretted wear profiles in 21 steps. These pressure profiles were then used in the CDM-FE model to predict the RCF life of fretted surfaces. The results indicate that increased fretting pressure leads to more wear on the surface, thereby reducing RCF life. As the RCF pressure increases (P_RCF ≥ 2.2 GPa), the effect of fretting on RCF life decreases for all fretting pressures and c/a values, indicating that life is primarily governed by the RCF pressure. The results from CDM-FE model were used to develop a life equation for evaluating the L₁₀ life of fretted M-50 bearing steel for the range of tested conditions.</p><p dir="ltr">Lastly, the sliding wear characteristics of pitch and poly-acrylonitrile based carbon-carbon (C/C) composites were investigated in air and nitrogen environment by designing and developing a disc brake test rig. It was found that the temperature of the disc, the surrounding environment, the supplied energy flux as well as the type of composite play a critical role in determining whether C/C composites operate in normal wear or dusting wear regime. Further analysis of wear mechanisms revealed interface and matrix cracking with fiber breakage from tests in air environment, whereas in nitrogen environment, particulate and layered debris played a prominent role.</p>