ISSN:
1013-9826
Source:
Scientific.Net: Materials Science & Technology / Trans Tech Publications Archiv 1984-2008
Topics:
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
Notes:
A common treatment to restore normal blood flow in an obstructed artery is thedeployment of a stent (i.e. small tube-like structure). The vast majority of stents are crimped on afolded balloon and laser cut from 316L stainless steel tubes. Although, several numerical studies(exploiting the Finite Element Method) are dedicated to the mechanical behaviour of balloonexpandable stents, there seems to be no consensus regarding the mechanical properties to describethe inelastic material behaviour of SS316L. Moreover, as the typical dimensions of stent struts (e.g.100 μm for coronary stents) are of a similar order of magnitude as the average grain size in stainlesssteel (i.e. 25 μm), continuum approaches relying on macroscopic material properties may bequestionable. In addition, an experimental study on stainless steel stent strut specimens showed asize-dependency of the failure strain. In this study the impact of the magnitude of the yield stress onthe stent expansion behavior is examined. An increase in the yield stress (from 205 N/mm² to 375N/mm²) results in an increase of the pressure (from about 0.3 N/mm² to approximately 0.4 N/mm²)which the clinician needs to exert for the balloon to unfold and to reach its cylindrical expandedshape. Furthermore, the effect of the size dependency behavior of the material is studied bymonitoring the nominal strain during stent expansion. The maximum value of the nominal strain inthe expanded stent (e.g. εn = 23 %) does not exceed the critical value of the failure strain, (i.e. εn =33 %), moreover the critical values are nowhere exceeded in the whole stent during the expansion.Our numerical results - accounting for the presence of the balloon in its actual folded shape -correspond very well with pressure/diameter data supplied by the manufacturer. Consequently, thisstudy shows that the free expansion of new generation balloon-expandable stents can be studiedaccurately with computational analysis based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and relying onmacroscopic material properties. In this context, there is no need to implement a size-basedconstitutive material model, but before accepting the results of the study, one should check in anycase the maximum strain against the limit as shown above
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://www.tib-hannover.de/fulltexts/2011/0528/01/54/transtech_doi~10.4028%252Fwww.scientific.net%252FKEM.340-341.841.pdf
Permalink
