Designing novel vascular stents with enhanced mechanical behavior through topology optimization of existing devices

A variety of different vascular stent designs are currently available on the market, featuring different geometries, manufacturing materials, and physical characteristics. Here, we propose a framework for designing innovative stents that replicate and enhance the mechanical properties of existing devices. The framework includes a Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP)-based topology optimization formulation, assisted by the homogenization theory to constrain the mechanical response, along with a minimum length scale requirement to ensure manufacturability to the designed devices. The optimization problem, discretized on a sequence of computational meshes anisotropically adapted, generates a 2D stent unit cell, which can be automatically converted into a 3D digital version of the device. This virtual prototype is validated through in silico testing via a radial crimping simulation to assess the stent insertion into the catheter, prior to implantation. The results prove that the proposed framework can identify stent designs that are competitive with respect to existing devices in terms of relevant clinical requirements, such as foreshortening, radial stiffness and surface contact area.