Shape Memory Alloy: from Constitutive Modeling to Finite Element Analysis of Stent Deployment

The use of shape memory alloys (SMA) in an increasing number of applications in many fields of engineering, and in particular in biomedical engineering, is leading to a growing interest toward an exhaustive modeling of their macroscopic behavior in order to construct reliable simulation tools for SMA-based devices. In this paper, we review the properties of a robust three-dimensional model able to reproduce both pseudo-elastic and shape-memory effect; then we calibrate the model parameters on experimental data and, finally, we exploit the model to perform the finite element analysis of pseudo-elastic Nitinol stent deployment in a simplified atherosclerotic artery model.