AUTHOR=Milosevic Miljan , Anic Milos , Nikolic Dalibor , Geroski Vladimir , Milicevic Bogdan , Kojic Milos , Filipovic Nenad 

TITLE=Application of in silico Platform for the Development and Optimization of Fully Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold Designs

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medical Technology

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medical-technology/articles/10.3389/fmedt.2021.724062

DOI=10.3389/fmedt.2021.724062

ISSN=2673-3129

ABSTRACT=Bioresorbable vascular scaffolds, made either from polymers or from metals, are promising materials for treating coronary artery disease through the processes of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. Despite the opinion that bioresorbable polymers are more promising for coronary stents, their long-term advantages over metallic alloys have not yet been clearly demonstrated. The development of new polymer-based bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) or optimization of existing ones requires engineers to perform many very expensive mechanical tests in order to identify optimal structural geometry and material characteristics. In-silico mechanical testing opens the possibility for fast and low-cost process of analysis of all mechanical characteristics and also provides the possibility to compare two or more competing designs. In this paper we use a recently introduced material model of poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) fully bioresorbable vascular scaffold and recently empowered numerical InSilc platform, in order to perform in-silico mechanicals tests of two different stent designs with different material and geometrical characteristics. The result of inflation, radial compression, three-point bending and two plate crush tests shows that numerical procedure with true experimental constitutive relationships could provide reliable conclusions and significant contribution to optimization and design of bioresorbable polymer-based stents.