A Comparison of Different Nitinol Material Data Sources for Finite Element Analysis

Nitinol (NiTi) is widely used for minimal invasive vascular implants due to its superelastic material behavior. Today computerized finite element analysis (FEA) modeling is a standard tool for the development of medical devices and an essential part of the product design and device approval process (X. Gong and A.R. Pelton, ABAQUS Analysis on Nitinol Medical Applications, Proceedings of ABAQUS User’s Conference, New Port, Rhode Island, 2001, p 1; N. Rebelo and M. Perry, Finite Element Analysis for the Design of Nitinol Medical Devices, Min. Invas. Ther. Allied Technol., 2000, 9(2), p 75). Quality of simulation depends on a multitude of parameters such as the mathematical material model and FE model generation (meshing). As such, a superior material data input is crucial in order to calculate the correct stress and strain conditions. In this study, we used different sources for material data input for our FE simulations. We compared simulated output versus the experimental results using a stent-like structure after various heat treatments. We used NiTi literature data, tensile data from raw as-supplied NiTi tubes as well as tensile and compression data from microtest samples which underwent stent-like processing for our FEA modeling. A FEA model of the diamond shape (DS) was constructed to quantify and visualize the force and motion response after applying different loading conditions similar to physiologic stress and strain. Force-deflection response of the virtual model was compared against the differently processed DS specimen. All results were put into a matrix in order to evaluate the quality of the different inputs for the FEA. The goal of this study was to demonstrate the importance of selecting and applying the correct material parameter inputs and to further show the importance of not just using given parameter, but also calibrating the values to get accurate results of FE simulations.