Multiphysics Hemodynamic Behavior of Polylactic Acid-Based Stent: A Coupled Simulation Approach

Abstract

This study investigates the structural and hemodynamic behavior of bioresorbable polylactic acid (PLA)-based stent designs for applications in treating coronary artery disease. Three stent designs were chosen and their geometry was modeled in SolidWorks and appropriate meshing was done before importing into the finite element analysis platform (ANSYS). The behavior of the stent designs was analyzed for structural loading conditions equivalent to human arterial blood pressure and similarly, the hemodynamic analysis was carried out under conditions simulating the blood flow. The stent porosity, structural stresses, wall shear stresses (WSS) and the velocity were analyzed, and the results from this multiphysics analysis show that the stresses occurring in the modified cordis stent (MCS) design present a maximum von Mises stress (273.01 MPa). Besides, the maximum WSS of 12.67 Pa is obtained from the hemodynamic flow analysis. The current findings are in the line of literature data for the possible usage of PLA as stent materials that pose a reduced risk of restenosis.