Case Study: Medtronic achieves faster stent design cycles and improved reliability with Dassault Systèmes' Abaqus & Isight

Medtronic - Customer Case Study

Medtronic needed to better understand in‑vivo performance and surgical delivery of stent grafts to optimize device behavior, meet regulatory 10‑year fatigue requirements, and improve patient outcomes. To address this, Medtronic worked with Dassault Systemes using Abaqus FEA and Isight workflow automation (SIMULIA) to model Nitinol stent behavior, incorporate manufacturing tolerances and variable patient boundary conditions, and move beyond single‑case analyses.

Using Dassault Systemes’ Abaqus and Isight, the team ran an automated DOE (200 Abaqus runs) and thousands of probabilistic simulations that produced response‑surface models with <1% error and explicitly included manufacturing variability. The workflow identified wire diameter and stent height as critical drivers, matched bench tests including 10‑year fatigue protocols, increased design reliability, and cut stent design cycle time by an order of magnitude—accelerating time‑to‑market and improving confidence in device performance.

Medtronic

Atul Gupta

Senior Principal Engineer, Medtronic Endovascular Therapies’ R&D Team