Development of computational models for evaluation of mechanical and hemodynamic behavior of an intravascular stent

Abstract

Coronary artery stenting has emerged as the gold standard for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. With this revolutionary technology, stents today have extended their indications from coronary artery diseases to many other applications including carotid, renal, and femoral arteries. A stent is a small, coiled wire-mesh tube that can be deployed into a narrowed artery and expanded by a catheter during angioplasty. Inserting such a foreign body into human is likely to induce adverse biological reactions such as restenosis. It is believed that the low wall shear stress (WSS) region on the stented arterial wall is related to restenosis [1-2]. The objective of this study is to apply the 3-D parametric design concept to the stent design and develop Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to predict the stent mechanical and hemodynamic behavior. The integrated design/and analysis scheme allows us to gain deeper insight into the fundamental stent issues, evaluate the mechanical and hemodynamic behavior of different stent designs, and significantly shorten the stent development cycle. Copyright ? 2011 by ASME.