Numerical Study on the Hemodynamic Performance of a Streamlined Endovascular Stent

Abstract

The wires with square or semi-circular cross-sections were always used to make the traditional commercial stents which lead to flow disturbance. The initiation and progression of restenosis was proved to have important relationships with flow disturbance. A new stent with streamlined cross-sectional wires was proposed and researched numerically for its hemodynamic performance. Simplified models of stents with square, semi-circular or streamlined cross-sectional wires were constructed numerically. Blood flows in the three models were simulated using computational fluid dynamics methods, and compared in terms of flow pattern, wall shear stress (WSS) and oscillating shear index (OSI). The results showed that when compared with the two traditional stents, the new stent with streamlined cross-sectional wires induced almost no flow disturbance, which clearly increased WSS and reduced the value of OSI within the stent.