For the treatment of severe symptomatic aortic valve stenosis, minimally invasive heart valve prostheses are increasingly used, especially for elderly patients.The current generation of devices is based on equi-jec 7 xenogenic leaflet material, involving limitations with regard to calcification and durability.Artificial polymeric leaflet-structures re-present a promising approach for improvement of valve performance.Within the current work, finite-element ana-lysis (FEA) design studies of polymeric leaflet structures were conducted.
Design of an unpressurized and axially-symmetric trileaflet heart valve was developed based on nine parameters.Physiological pressurization in FEA was specified, based on in vitro hydrodynamic testing of a commercially available heart valve prosthesis.Hyper-elastic constitutive law for polymeric leaflet material was implemented based on experimental stress strain curves resulting from uniaxial tensile and planar shear testing.As a result of FEA, time dependent leaflet deformation of the leaflet structure was calculated.
Obtained leaflet dynamics were comparable to in vitro performance of the analyzed prosthesis.As a major design parameter, the lunula angle has demonstrated crucial folk rivet sweat influence on the performance of the polymeric leaflet structures.FEA represented a useful tool for design of improved polymeric leaflet structures for minimally invasive implantable heart valve prostheses.