Expandable Lattice Web Connector Rotation for Vessel Navigation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Medical devices with expandable lattice structures face challenges in achieving a balance between high axial rigidity for delivery through catheters and transverse axial flexibility to navigate small, tortuous blood vessels while maintaining sufficient radial force for vessel anchoring.
Innovation Solution
A medical device with a compressible and expandable lattice structure featuring web connectors that rotate during state transitions, allowing for a dynamically changing ratio between cell height and width, enhancing flexibility without compromising radial force, and featuring a rhombic cell design with web connectors that rotate within a wall plane to accommodate varying vessel geometries.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If the lattice structure has high axial rigidity to ensure good feedability through the catheter, then the lattice structure avoids expanding radially when axial force is applied, but the transverse axial flexibility is reduced, making placement in small, tightly wound vessels more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The web connectors are designed to rotate during expansion, dynamically changing the angle between the connector axis and longitudinal axis. This rotation enables the lattice structure to adapt its shape from a circular cross-section in the compressed state to an oval cross-section during expansion, providing both axial rigidity for delivery and transverse flexibility for navigation through tortuous vessels
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the geometric parameters of the lattice structure by allowing web connector rotation. The angle between the connector axis and longitudinal axis changes from parallel (0 degrees) in the compressed state to a larger angle during expansion. This parameter change enables the structure to maintain axial rigidity while gaining transverse flexibility for navigating small, tortuous blood vessels
2Adaptability or versatility
If dimensional changes are made to increase transverse axial flexibility for guiding through tortuous vessels, then the device can navigate small blood vessels better, but the radial force decreases, risking insufficient anchoring of the lattice structure
Solution Approach 1:
The web connectors rotate dynamically during expansion, allowing the lattice structure to achieve high transverse flexibility for navigating tortuous vessels while maintaining sufficient radial force for anchoring. The rotation occurs in a controlled manner that preserves the radial expansion capability
Solution Approach 2:
The web connectors are pre-configured with specific geometric parameters (initial angle, rotation range) that enable them to rotate during expansion. This preliminary design ensures that when the lattice structure is deployed, the web connectors rotate to provide both flexibility for navigation and sufficient radial force for secure anchoring in the vessel wall
3Ease of operation
If the lattice structure is designed with a circular-cylindrical cross section for delivery, then it can be easily inserted through catheters, but it cannot accommodate varying vessel geometries effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The lattice structure maintains a circular-cylindrical cross-section in the compressed delivery state for easy catheter insertion, then transforms to an oval cross-section during expansion through web connector rotation. This dynamic shape change allows the device to accommodate varying vessel geometries while maintaining ease of delivery
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces shape transformation as an additional degree of freedom. The lattice structure can change its cross-sectional geometry from circular to oval by rotating the web connectors, allowing it to adapt to different vessel shapes and sizes while maintaining the advantages of a circular design during delivery
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The device achieves high transverse axial flexibility, enabling navigation through small, tortuous vessels while maintaining sufficient radial force for secure anchoring, thereby improving delivery and deployment in complex vascular anatomies.
Implementation Method 1
The web connectors rotate during the transition of the lattice structure from the manufacturing state to a compressed state, so that an angle between the connector axis and a longitudinal axis of the lattice structure changes
Implementation Method 2
The lattice structure assumes a radially compressed state, so that it can be advanced within the catheter channel... during the transition of the lattice structure from a fully expanded manufacturing state to a partially expanded intermediate state
Implementation Method 3
The lattice structure assumes a radially compressed state, so that it can be advanced within the catheter channel... during the transition of the lattice structure from the manufacturing state to a compressed state
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3~4
Figure 5~6
AI summary
The invention relates to a medical device for inserting into a hollow organ of the body, said medical device having a compressible and expandable lattice structure (10) made of webs (11, 12, 13, 14), which are integrally connected to each other by web connectors (20) and which bound closed cells (30) of the lattice structure (10), wherein the web connectors each have a connector axis (21) extending between two cells (30) which, in a longitudinal direction of the lattice structure (10), are adjacent to each other. During the transition of the lattice structure (10) from the production state to a compressed state, the web connectors (20) rotate in such a way that an angle between the connector axis (21) and a longitudinal axis (15) of the lattice structure (10) changes, in particular increases, during the transition of the lattice structure (10) from a completely expanded production state to a partially expanded intermediate state.