A computational study of mechanical behavior of bioresorbable polymeric stents

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading killer of human life worldwide. Clinically, stent implantation with percutaneous coronary intervention has become a standard and effective method to treat coronary artery disease. A large amount of research work has been carried out to investigate the mechanical, degradation and fatigue behavior for permanent metallic stents, but not for bioresorbable polymeric stents. Such research gaps are urgently required to be addressed, as bioresorbable polymeric stents are regarded as the next generation medical devices, even replacing metallic stents. In this thesis, pioneering efforts have been made to systematically study the mechanical behavior of polymeric stents using finite element method, which are novel and have not been reported in literature yet. [Continues.]