Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : September 03, 2017 - September 06, 2017
Most of coronary artery stents are manufactured from small diameter metal tubes. Therefore, evaluation of mechanical properties of the metal tube is important to guarantee the required stent performance. Although uniaxial tensile test is often employed to obtain a stress-strain relation in axial direction of metal tube, it is not suitable to evaluate the mechanical properties in circumferential direction. In this study, we focused on a tube end flaring test to evaluate the circumferential mechanical properties of small-diameter AZ31 magnesium alloy tube, which is expected to be used for bio-absorbable coronary artery stent. Finite element analysis was performed to investigate the deformation characteristics of the tube in the tube end flaring test. The experimental investigation was also conducted on AZ31 magnesium alloy tube by means of a lab-made test instrument. The results revealed the possibility to evaluate the mechanical properties of the small diameter magnesium alloy tube by the tube end flaring test.
