Mechanics guided design of programmable bilayer for aortic valve stent

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has emerged as a promising treatment option for aortic stenosis. However, the prevalent stent used for valve placement restricts the post-release adjustment or movement of the artificial valve, increasing the potential risk to patients once accidental mispositioning occurs. Herein, we propose a 4D printing strategy to realize a proof-of-concept thermal-activated transcatheter aortic valve (TAV) stent that allows for programmable manipulation. Polylactic acid/polyurethane composites are directly printed to perform as the active units that tailor the configuration of the programmable TAV stent, accommodating to different tasks such as blood vessel navigation and topological fixation with cardiac cavity. A theoretical model is developed to explore the curvature evolutions of the active composite, realizing good agreement with experimental observations. Guided by the model, we seek out the optimized programming and activation conditions that allow for desired transformations to realize permanent fixation under intra-annular release and thermal-activated retraction under infra-annular release, inspiring the future development of TAV stents with shape memory principle.