• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.493-504
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• 2008

This paper presents a computation of nonlinear elastic strains that may occur in the leaflet of the Edwards MIRA mechanical heart valve by the applied high blood pressure using the finite element analysis methodology. By adopting numerical analysis techniques of the commercial finite element analysis code, NISA, structural analyses of the Edwards MIRA mechanical heart valve are performed for the slight variation of leaflet thickness to get the elastic strains occurring in the leaflet while the high blood fluid pressures are applied to the leaflet surface in order that the maximum stress occurring in the leaflet may be less than the yield stress of the leaflet material(Si-Alloyed PyC). And so, only the geometric non-linearity is assumed because large geometric nonlinear elastic strains are expected rather than material nonlinear strains due to the applied high blood pressure. Computed linear and nonlinear elastic strains are compared to make sure the non-linearity of the computed elastic strain. The comparison result shows that large elastic strains occur clearly in the very thin leaflets as high blood pressures are applied. However, only the linear elastic strains occur for low blood pressures, and also for thick leaflets even for the high blood pressures. Hence the nonlinear structural analysis is very required in the structural design of a mechanical heart valve.