title: Fiber heart valve prosthesis: influence of the fabric construction parameters on the valve fatigue performances.
abstract: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has become today a largely considered alternative technique to surgical valve replacement in patients who are not operable or patients with high risk for open chest surgery. However, the biological valve tissue used in the devices implanted clinically appears to be fragile material when folded for low diameter catheter insertion purpose and released in calcified environment with irregular geometry. Textile polyester material is characterized by outstanding folding and strength properties combined with proven biocompatibility. It could thereof be considered to replace biological valve leaflets in the TAVR procedure. The textile construction parameters must however be tuned to obtain a material compatible with the valve requested durability. In that context, one issue to be addressed is the friction effect that occurs between filaments and between yarns within a fabric under flexure loading. This phenomenon could be critical for the resistance of the material on the long term. The purpose of the present work is to assess the fatigue performances of textile valve prototypes made from different fabric constructions (monofilament, multifilament, calendered mutifilament) under accelerated cyclic loading. The goal is to identify, which construction is the best suited to long term fatigue stress. Results show that calendered multifilament and monofilament fabric constructions undergo strong ruptures already from 40 Mio cycles, while non calendered multifilament appears more durable. The rupture patterns observed point out that durability is directly related to the flexure stiffness level of the fibrous elements in the construction.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique et Mécanique Textiles EAC CNRS 7189, ENSISA, 11 rue Alfred Werner, 68093 Mulhouse, France.
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vaesken
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique et Mécanique Textiles EAC CNRS 7189, ENSISA, 11 rue Alfred Werner, 68093 Mulhouse, France. Electronic address: frederic.heim@uha.fr.
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Heim
authors.affiliation: Service de Chirurgie Vasculaire-Geprovas, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, 67000 Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Nabil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chakfe
mesh_terms: D001021:Aortic Valve; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D008422:Materials Testing; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D011475:Prosthesis Failure; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
keywords: Fatigue; Fiber; Heart valve; Textile; Transcatheter