Braided stents are associated with a number of complications in vivo. Accurate computational modelling of these devices is essential for the design and development of the next generation of these stents. In this study, two commonly utilised methods of computationally modelling filament interaction in braided stents are investigated: the join method and the weave method. Three different braided stent designs are experimentally tested and computationally modelled in both radial and v-block configurations. The results of the study indicate that while both methods are capable of capturing braided stent performance to some degree, the weave method is much more robust.
Keywords: Braided stent; experimental testing; finite-element analysis; nitinol.