Numerical analysis for the structural strength comparison of St. Jude Medical and Edwards MIRA bileaflet mechanical heart valve prostheses

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical analysis for the structural strength comparison of the St. Jude Medical bileaflet mechanical heart valve prosthesis with flat leaflet and the Edwards MIRA bileaflet mechanical heart valve prosthesis with curved leaflet. Computer aided engineering systems are used in the analysis. The blood fluid pressure is applied to both flat and curved leaflets of the bileaflet mechanical heart valve prostheses for the rigid body dynamic analysis to confirm the almost same dynamic characteristics of both flat and curved leaflet motions. Thereafter, using the same blood fluid pressure and dynamic characteristics of leaflet motions, structural mechanic analyses for both flat and curved leaflets of the mechanical heart valve prostheses are carried out to show quite different stress and deformation results, respectively. Conclusively, from the viewpoint of stress, it is revealed that the St. Jude Medical bileaflet mechanical heart valve prosthesis is structurally stronger and better than the Edwards MIRA bileaflet mechanical heart valve prosthesis. Computer aided engineering systems used in this comparative structural analysis are ADAMS for the rigid body dynamic analysis, and NISA for the structural mechanic analysis.

A Numerical Analysis of Pressure Pulsation Characteristics Induced by Unsteady Blood Flow in a Bileaflet Mechanical Heart Valve

“…Figure 1 shows a three-dimensional simplified geometry of the St. Jude bileaflet mechanical heart valve investigated in this research, which was chosen to be similar to previous studies [14,15]. The model geometry mainly consists of four parts: valve leaflets, aortic sinus, inlet, and outlet sections [16]. In the previous experimental study, the phenomenon of leaflet fluttering was only observed when the leaflets were in the fully open position, so the leaflets were assumed to be fixed in the fully open position to simplify the calculation.…”