Investigation of changing geometry parameters of nickel-titanium shape memory alloys wire stent in cardiovascular implants

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the effects of changing the Nitinol stent's geometrical characteristics on the superelastic behavior of the stent using the finite element method. Four different geometrical parameters were considered and analyzed in sixteen stents. These geometrical parameters consisted of stent length, number of stent's meanders, inside diameter of the stent and wire diameter. Results showed that decreasing either stent length or the number of stent meanders and increasing either the inside diameter of the stent or wire diameter generally result in more sensible superelastic behavior exposure. The effect of changing stent length is independent of the inside diameter and number of the stent's meanders. Effects of changing inside diameter and number of stent's meanders were exactly dependent together. In addition, increasing wire diameter has a great effect on the maximum force. In conclusion, the results of this study may serve as guidelines for future stent design.

Multifunctional Superelastic Foam-Like Boron Nitride Nanotubular Cellular-Network Architectures

Construction of cellular architectures has been expected to enhance materials' mechanical tolerance and to stimulate and broaden their efficient utilizations in many potential fields. However, hitherto, there have been rather scarce developments in boron nitride (BN)-type cellular architectures because of well-known difficulties in the syntheses of BN-based structures. Herein, cellular-network multifunctional foams made of interconnective nanotubular hexagonal BN (h-BN) architectures are developed using carbothermal reduction-assisted in situ chemical vapor deposition conversion from N-doped tubular graphitic cellular foams. These ultralight, chemically inert, thermally stable, and robust-integrity (supporting about 25,000 times of their own weight) three-dimensional-BN foams exhibit a 98.5% porosity, remarkable shape recovery (even after cycling compressions with 90% deformations), excellent resistance to water intrusion, thermal diffusion stability, and high strength and stiffness. They remarkably reduce the coefficient of thermal expansion and dielectric constant of polymeric poly(methyl methacrylate) composites, greatly contribute to their thermal conductivity improvement, and effectively limit polymeric composite softening at elevated temperatures. The foams also demonstrate high-capacity adsorption-separation and removal ability for a wide range of oils and organic chemicals in oil/water systems and reliable recovery under their cycling usage as organic adsorbers. These created multifunctional foams should be valuable in many high-end practical applications.