Analytical Modeling of a New Compliant Microsystem for Atherectomy Operations

This work offers a new alternative tool for atherectomy operations, with the purpose of minimizing the risks for the patients and maximizing the number of clinical cases for which the system can be used, thanks to the possibility of scaling its size down to lumen reduced to a few tenths of mm. The development of this microsystem has presented a certain theoretical work during the kinematic synthesis and the design stages. In the first stage a new multi-loop mechanism with a Stephenson’s kinematic chain (KC) was found and then adopted as the so-called pseudo-rigid body mechanism (PRBM). Analytical modeling was necessary to verify the synthesis requirements. In the second stage, the joint replacement method was applied to the PRBM to obtain a corresponding and equivalent compliant mechanism with lumped compliance. The latter presents two loops and six elastic joints and so the evaluation of the microsystem mechanical advantage (MA) had to be calculated by taking into account the accumulation of elastic energy in the elastic joints. Hence, a new closed form expression of the microsystem MA was found with a method that presents some new aspects in the approach. The results obtained with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) were compared to those obtained with the analytical model. Finally, it is worth noting that a microsystem prototype can be fabricated by using MEMS Technology classical methods, while the microsystem packaging could be a further development for the present investigation.