Development of Experimental and Computational Models to Evaluate the Stability of Aortic Stent Grafts in Motor Vehicle Accidents

A high speed impact system was developed to study the stability of stent grafts in thoracic porcine models in vitro. The experiments were guided by a finite element model of the test setup to identify the conditions that increase the risk of instability of the stent graft. The models showed that at anterior inclination of 45° and average deceleration of 40 G, which represented a frontal crash, the stent graft can move up to 1 mm. The results of this study may be helpful in developing future grafts to withstand shocks experienced in motor vehicle accidents.