Relevance of Mesh Dimension Optimization, Geometry Simplification and Discretization Accuracy in the Study of Mechanical Behaviour of Bare Metal Stents

In this paper, the authors propose a set of analyses on the deployment of coronary stents by using a nonlinear finite element method. The goal is to propose a convergence test able to select the appropriate mesh dimension and a methodology to perform the simplification of structures composed of cyclically repeated units to reduce the number of degrees of freedom and the analysis run time. A systematic study, based on the analysis of seven meshes for each model, was performed, gradually reducing the element dimension. In addition, geometric models were simplified considering symmetries; adequate boundary conditions were applied and verified based on the results obtained from the analysis of the whole model.