Selective laser melting (SLM) has garnered significant attention in the manufacturing of cardiovascular stents due to its potential for fabricating customized stents with intricate geometries that meet clinical requirements. This study aims to optimize the SLM parameters for NiTi stents to achieve minimal porosity and surface roughness, and investigate the biocompatibility and compression tests of SLMed stents. Firstly, the single-factor experiments of laser power, scanning speed and hatch spacing are conducted, respectively. Subsequently, a Box-Benhnken experimental was employed to establish regression prediction models for porosity and surface roughness using response surface methodology (RSM). The results show that scanning speed is the most influential factor on porosity, while laser power significantly affects surface roughness. The optimized parameter combination with minimum porosity of 0.165% and surface roughness of 6.17 μm as follows: laser power of 156W, scanning speed of 712mm/s, and hatch spacing of 0.9mm. The relative errors of them are 0.19% and 0.8%, respectively, indicating that the regression model possesses good prediction ability. Additionally, the corrosion rate and nickel ion release gradually increase with the immersion time, reaching the highest corrosion rate of 2.46g/m² and nickel ion release of 1.08μg after 42 days. Besides, the SLMed stent demonstrated good recovery ability in the compression test. The findings promote the utilization of SLM in the manufacturing of NiTi cardiovascular stents for medical implant applications.
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