Online Detection of Stent Fractures in Durability Tests by Monitoring the Electrical Resistance.

New stent designs must be tested for fatigue resistance before approval for the medical application. Testing under worst-case loading conditions may lead to fractures. For assessment it is important to detect when or after how much test cycles the first strut fractures occur. The monitoring of the electrical resistance is an online method for fracture detection during the fatigue test. This article describes the investigation of a proof of principle of a potential compensation technique for measuring the resistance change at a stent structure break and a nonwelding technology for electrically contacting the metal stent.