Ring stent bundles have been used in several biomedical stent-graft devices for decades, yet in the published literature, the numerical models of these structures always present significant simplifications. In this paper, a finite element (FE) ring stent bundle has been developed and evaluated with a combination of beam and surface elements. With this approach, the shape, the global stiffness and the strains of the structure can all be well predicted at a low computational cost while the approach is suitable for application to non-symmetrical, patient-specific implant simulations. The model has been validated against analytical and experimental data showing that the manufacturing strains can be predicted to a 0.1% accuracy and the structural stiffness with 0–7% precision. The model has also been compared with a more computationally expensive FE model of higher fidelity, revealing a discrepancy of 0–5% of the strain value. Finally, it has been shown that the exclusion of the manufacturing process from the simulation, a technique used in the literature, quadruples the analysis error. This is the first model that can capture the mechanical state of a full ring stent bundle, suitable for complex implant geometry simulations, with such accuracy.

中文翻译：

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包含制造菌株的全环支架束建模新方法的评估

环形支架束已在几种生物医学支架移植装置中使用了数十年，但在已发表的文献中，这些结构的数值模型始终呈现出明显的简化。在本文中，已经开发了有限元（FE）环形支架束，并结合了梁和表面单元进行了评估。使用这种方法，可以以较低的计算成本很好地预测结构的形状，整体刚度和应变，同时该方法适用于非对称，针对患者的植入物仿真。该模型已针对分析和实验数据进行了验证，该分析和实验数据表明可以预测制造应变的精度为0.1％，结构刚度的预测精度为0–7％。该模型还与更高保真度的计算量更大的有限元模型进行了比较，发现应变值的差异为0％至5％。最后，已经表明，从文献中使用的一种技术排除了制造过程的模拟，使分析误差增加了三倍。这是第一个能够以这种精度捕获完整环支架束的机械状态的模型，适用于复杂的植入物几何模拟。