Mechanical properties of anti-tetrachiral auxetic stents

Abstract The mechanical properties of artery stent are of key importance to the mechanical integrity and biomechanical performance reliability of stent-plaque-artery system. In this paper, making use of auxetic deformation features of chiral structures and mechanical benefits of structural hierarchy, two types of innovative chiral stents with auxetic properties are proposed: (a) anti-tetrachiral stent with circular and elliptical nodes; (b) hierarchical anti-tetrachiral stents with circular and elliptical nodes. Firstly, the in-plane mechanical properties of anti-tetrachiral structures are investigated theoretically, and uniaxial tensile experiments are performed for verification; Secondly, design procedures of anti-tetrachiral stent and hierarchical anti-tetrachiral stent with circular and elliptical nodes are elaborated. Effects of stent geometrical parameters on the tensile mechanical behaviors of these stents are studied with finite element analysis (FEA). It is found that the mechanical behaviors of anti-tetrachiral stent can be tailored through adjusting the levels of hierarchical structures and unit cell design parameters. Finally, the deformation of anti-tetrachiral and hierarchical anti-tetrachiral stents during stenting process are investigated with FEA. It is found that the proposed anti-tetrachiral and hierarchical anti-tetrachiral stents exhibit remarkable radial expanding abilities while maintaining axial stability, thus show promising performances for practical clinical applications.