Form B Check In

In the last few weeks, I have been meeting with my mentor as he is helping me learn more about how the stent tracks are designed. Along with that, we have been putting together other tracks for coronary stent testing that he has been working on with his coworkers. After we put all those together, a part of the track was too big so then we had to go back through and take them apart so that that piece could be replaced with a smaller one.  

The most difficult part of working with solid works, is that when you change one part of the track, it can have a chain effect and mess up all the other parts. This process is a constantly going back and forth between making the change I want, and then fixing the rest to make my piece fit. This is a picture of the stent track I have been working with.

Using the solid works program Matt, my mentor, has been teaching me how it works. For my project I am supposed to design, build, create, and put together to test, a track for stent testing. Using the solid works program I have been experimenting with altering different parts of the track, to make it even more, tedious for the stent to get through. Meanwhile to improve my understanding of why we need stents, and where they go, my mentor has given me a few books and articles to read.

My next step is to finish designing the track for coronary stent testing and print it. When I say print it, I mean that my mentor and I will be 3D printing it, which is how these model are made. Once it is printed we will assemble the track and test the track. To test, I will try to run a stent through the track and hope to get it to the location that it theoretically needs to get to.

Here are the pictures of the Form B:

Project Overview

For my junior project, I will be working with a stent designer and engineer at Medtronic. We have agreed upon teachign me to create and design a track for a 2.5(18mm) stent. After mapping out this, I will be inputting my design into a 3D printing computer program. Once the track has been made, I will test it with a test stent to see if I am successful.

This is what the test stent tracks are suppose to replicate. Tracks are
used to test the force it takes to make a stent get past all the turns and how
efficiently it is able to do so.

So far, I have spent most of my time while working on this project, learning all the background information necessary to design a track. I have been watching videos on how stents work, reading about the already made stent tracks, and testing various mechanism hand on while at Medtronic.

This is a simplified picture of what a heart stent looks like in the heart once
it is released. Not all stents look like this, though, because new designs
are constantly being produced.

 After I gain a better understanding about the mobility of stents and the basics of how to design a stent tracks, I will begin on the track design. I need to learn more about the dimension of how tracks need to be to be helpful for testing.

This the device that is used to release a stent from a compact state to the
expanded state that allows it to help the viens and arotry keep its shape.