Relevance of Mesh Dimension Optimization, Geometry Simplification and Discretization Accuracy in the Study of Mechanical Behaviour of Bare Metal Stents

In this paper, a set of analyses on the deployment of coronary stents by using a nonlinear finite element method is proposed. The author proposes a convergence test able to select the appropriate mesh dimension and a methodology to perform the simplification of structures composed of cyclically repeated units to reduce the number of degree of freedom and the analysis run time. A systematic study, based on the analysis of seven meshes for each model, is performed, gradually reducing the element dimension. In addition, geometric models are simplified considering symmetries; adequate boundary conditions are applied and verified based on the results obtained from analysis of the whole model.