Login / Signup

Effects of Tapered-Strut Design on Fatigue Life Enhancement of Peripheral Stents.

Li-Han LinKuang-Lei HoYu-Min JianKuang-Hsing ChiangHao-Ming Hsiao
Published in: Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) (2023)
Peripheral stent could fracture from cyclic loadings as a result of our blood pressures or daily activities. Fatigue performance has therefore become a key issue for peripheral stent design. A simple yet powerful tapered-strut design concept for fatigue life enhancement was investigated. This concept is to move the stress concentration away from the crown and re-distribute the stresses along the strut by narrowing the strut geometry. Finite element analysis was performed to evaluate the stent fatigue performance under various conditions consistent with the current clinical practice. Thirty stent prototypes were manufactured in-house by laser with a series of post-laser treatments, followed by the validation of bench fatigue tests for proof of concept. FEA simulation results show that the fatigue safety factor of the 40% tapered-strut design increased by 4.2 times that of a standard counterpart, which was validated by bench tests with 6.6-times and 5.9-times fatigue enhancement at room temperature and body temperature, respectively. Bench fatigue test results agreed very well with the increasing trend predicted by FEA simulation. The effects of the tapered-strut design were significant and could be considered as an option for fatigue optimization of future stent designs.
Keyphrases
  • sleep quality
  • room temperature
  • clinical practice
  • physical activity
  • depressive symptoms
  • mass spectrometry
  • high resolution
  • finite element analysis
  • heat stress
  • high speed