Magnesium Alloy Stent Expansion Behavior Simulated by Finite Element Method
Biodegradable magnesium alloy stents have gained increasing interest in the past years due to their potential prospect. Magnesium alloy is brittle compared with stainless steel. This means it has less elongation than other stent materials and it may cause strut break under large deformation. In this paper, a finite element model for magnesium alloy stent is studied to simulate the mechanical behavior of the stent. It is composed of 1.5mm in inner diameter, 7mm length, 80µm thickness and 110µm in cross-sectional width. Six mechanical properties have been studied by mathematical modeling with determination of: (1) stent deployment pressure; (2) the intrinsic elastic recoil of the material used; (3) the stent foreshortening; (4) the stent coverage area, (5) the stent flexibility; and (6) the stress maps.