Degradation simulation of Poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) vascular stents based on the continuous damage model

Abstract

Abstract Understanding the evolution law of degradation is the basis of stents application. Therefore, the degradation of Poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) vascular stents was simulated by ABAQUS in this paper. Firstly, the mechanical properties of PLLA sheets were obtained by tensile test. It was found that in the process of degradation, the elastic modulus of sheets almost did not change, but their yield strength and elongation decreased obviously. Then, the anisotropic material model and continuous damage degradation model based on hydrolysis and residual stress were established. Simulation results which showed that the damage of ring bends was larger is consistent with the experiments of some scholars. This confirmed that the modeling method can predict the distribution of damage.