title: Feasibility of using bulk metallic glass for self-expandable stent applications.
abstract: Self-expandable stents are widely used to restore blood flow in a diseased artery segment by keeping the artery open after angioplasty. Despite the prevalent use of conventional crystalline metallic alloys, for example, nitinol, to construct self-expandable stents, new biomaterials such as bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are being actively pursued to improve stent performance. Here, we conducted a series of analyses including finite element analysis and molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the feasibility of using a prototypical Zr-based BMG for self-expandable stent applications. We model stent crimping of several designs for different percutaneous applications. Our results indicate that BMG-based stents with diamond-shaped crowns suffer from severe localization of plastic deformation and abrupt failure during crimping. As a possible solution, we further illustrate that such abrupt failure could be avoided in BMG-based stents without diamond shape crowns. This work would open a new horizon for a quest toward exploiting superior mechanical and functional properties of metallic glasses to design future stents. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 105B: 1874-1882, 2017.
authors.affiliation: Engineering Mechanics, Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, 138632.
authors.forename: Gideon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Praveen Kumar
authors.affiliation: Engineering Mechanics, Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, 138632.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jafary-Zadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Material Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, 113659466, Iran.
authors.forename: Rouhollah
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tavakoli
authors.affiliation: Engineering Mechanics, Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, 138632.
authors.forename: Fangsen
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cui
mesh_terms: D000497:Alloys; D000818:Animals; D001807:Blood Vessel Prosthesis; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation; D005898:Glass; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D015607:Stents
chemical_list: D000497:Alloys; C013616:nitinol
keywords: bulk metallic glass; crimping; finite element analysis; molecular dynamics simulations; nitinol; self-expandable stent