Investigation of 3D Printed Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold Crimping Behavior

The rise in additive manufacturing (AM) offers myriad opportunities for 3D printed polymeric vascular scaffolds, such as customization and on-the-spot manufacturing, in vivo biodegradation, incorporation of drugs to prevent restenosis, and visibility under X-ray. To maximize these benefits, informed scaffold design is critical. Polymeric bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) must undergo significant deformation prior to implantation in a diameter-reduction process known as crimping that enables minimally invasive surgery. Understanding the behavior of vascular scaffolds in this step provides twofold benefits: first, it ensures the BVS is able to accommodate stresses occurring during this process to prevent failure, and further, it provides information on the radial strength of the BVS, a key metric to understanding its post-implant performance in the artery. To capitalize on the fast manufacturing speed AM provides, a low time cost solution for understanding scaffold performance during this step is necessary. Through simulation of the BVS crimping process in ABAQUS using experimentally obtained bulk material properties, a qualitative analysis tool is developed that is capable of accurately comparing relative performance trends of varying BVS designs during crimping in a fraction of the time of experimental testing, thereby assisting in the integration of informed design into the additive manufacturing process.