Mechanical Response of a Metallic Aortic Stent—Part I: Pressure-Diameter Relationship

The mechanical response of a metallic stent is considered in this series of two papers. In Part I, the development of a test method for the characterization of the mechanical response of a metallic aortic stent subjected to internal or external pressure, and a model that captures the relationship between the pressure and diameter of the stent based on slender rod theory are described. The axial and radial deformation of a bare-metal stent were measured as the stent was subjected to loading ranging from an external pressure of about 80 mm of Hg to an internal pressure of about 160 mm of Hg. The pressure was applied using a polyethylene bag; the method of applying the pressure and measuring the strains was found to provide an accurate determination of the mechanical behavior of the stent. The stent was shown to exhibit two stiff limiting states corresponding to the fully collapsed and fully expanded diameters and an intermediate range between the two where the stiffness was an order of magnitude smaller than the typical stiffness of an aorta. A complete mathematical characterization of the pressure-diameter response of the wire stent was also developed; this model is a straightforward application of the theory of slender rods to the problem of the stent. Excellent agreement with the experimental measurements is indicated, opening the possibility for modeling of the coupled response of the stent and the vessel into which it is inserted. In Part II, we consider the effect of variations of pressure over the length of the stent that introduce changes in the diameter along the length of the stent which leads naturally to the formulation of the coupled problem of the stent within the blood vessel.