In conjunction with the Faculty of Medicine & Health Science and a San Francisco based well-known biomedical company, CACM researchers have been developing biodegradable coronary stent materials and have recently found a unique combination of three-polymer blend that has shown great promise to achieve the required mechanical performance in its original and biodegraded conditions. This project will involve the manufacture and characterisation of the novel blend and drawing of hollow tubes for the stent production. The crimping behaviour of the tubes and creep characteristics of the material under various stages of degradation will have to be determined to establish the viability of eventual stent manufacturing. It is expected that the characteristics will be compared with those of existing stent material supplied by our collaborating US-based company. The uniqueness of this material lies in the blend combination to achieve high ductility and at the same time good mechanical performance. The latter is achieved by creating in-situ micro-/nano-fibrils from the third constituent polymer.
Undergraduate
Development of a novel material for manufacturing biodegradable coronary stents
Good mechanics of materials knowledge
Lab allocations have not been finalised