Construction on finite element analysis method of coronary stent in cyclical bending-load environment simulated bending motion of coronary artery

[Aim] We aimed to construct a method of finite element analysis (FEA) on a coronary stent deployed in cyclically-bended artery. [Method] A CoCr alloy stent was analyzed using ADINA8.9 in three steps: (1) crimp the stent onto a balloon, (2) deploy the stent in the artery model by balloon inflation, (3) bend the artery model in the angle range from 105° to 125°. Finally, the fatigue safety factor (FSF) was calculated by stress amplitude and mean stress.[Result and Discussion] We found that the 1/FSF is higher at the links and crowns connected to links at the bended region. The portion of stent fracture observed in the durability tests was coincident with the higher 1/FSF region. [Conclusion] We constructed the FEA method of the coronary stent in the successive processes of crimping onto the balloon, deploying and bending in the artery model.