Vascular stents: Coupling full 3-D with reduced-order structural models

Self-expanding nitinol stents are used to treat peripheral arterial disease. The peripheral arteries are subjected to a combination of mechanical forces such as compression, torsion, bending, and contraction. Most commercially available peripheral self-expanding stents are composed of a series of sub-millimeter V-shaped struts, which are laser-cut from a nitinol tube and surface-treated for better fatigue performance. The numerical stent models must accurately predict location and distribution of local stresses and strains caused by large arterial deformations. Full 3-D finite element non-linear analysis of an entire stent is computationally expensive to the point of being prohibitive, especially for longer stents. Reduced-order models based on beam or shell elements are fairly accurate in capturing global deformations, but are not very helpful in predicting stent failure. We propose a mixed approach that combines the full 3-D model and reduced-order models. Several global-local, full 3-D/reduced-order finite element models of a peripheral self-expanding stent were validated and compared with experimental data. The kinematic constraint method used to couple various elements together was found to be very efficient and easily applicable to commercial FEA codes. The proposed mixed models can be used to accurately predict stent failure based on realistic (patient-specific), non-linear kinematic behavior of peripheral arteries.