An analysis of the contact between the stent and the artery using tube hydroforming simulation

Stents for angioplasty have been extensively used to treat coronary diseases. The aim of this study is to analyze the expansion of the stent and the contact with the artery using tube hydroforming simulation. In the simulation, the contact stress and the final shape of the artery after stent expansion process using the Stampack (®;) software will be studied. A model of a commercial stent made of 316L stainless steel was modeled by using an elastic-plastic constitutive law with isotropic hardening. The artery was modeled as a cylinder and made of hyperelastic material. The stent model studied in this work presented a good performance according to the results obtained. After expansion, any region of the stent's structure with strong risk of wrinkling, thinning, or buckling was not observed. In the forming limit diagram, all points were far from the Keeler-Goodwin diagram. Furthermore, the expanded stent model has a good conformability. In conclusion, our data show that the proposed methodology is a useful tool to check if the stent model implanted in the artery may cause restenosis after angioplasty; thus, our tests provided a reliable tool to analyze this risk.