Qualification of Additively Manufactured Blood Vessel Models for the Evaluation of Braided Stent Designs

For testing new designs of braided stents, an animal free anatomical model is needed, in which different Flow Diverter (FD) designs can be implanted and evaluated. The geometric replication of vessels by additively manufactured (AM) models has already been proven for aneurysm coiling within the neurointerventional training model HANNES. Nevertheless, since FDs closely interact with the vessel wall, AM vessel model materials need to be qualificated for the use case. Therefore, this paper presents an appropriate test bench for AM material tests and characterizes AM impact factors. As an outlook, different AM materials are tested and compared. Additionally, the impact of the postprocessing is investigated for one material.