Nitinol medical device implants made from laser cut tubing (i.e. stents, valve structures, etc...) often require a fatigue assessment, which makes determining the material fatigue properties necessary. Towards the goal of determining the strain based endurance limit of medical grade super-elastic Nitinol tubing, a coupon was designed and evaluated via FEA using Abaqus software, produced via laser cutting, shape setting, and electro-polishing processes, and then fatigue tested to 10 million cycles. Extensive use of FEA was made to both design the coupon, but also to determine the strain versus alternating displacement amplitude for the coupon. Error due to dimensional tolerances was also quantified with FEA.
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