Final Year Project by James McGarry Wins National Awards

• Project Summary (PDF)
• IEI report 
• Press Release

James McGarry, a 2001 mechanical engineering graduate of NUI Galway, has received  the inaugural Medtronic AVE Biomedical Engineering Student Award which was presented after a nationwide competition for final year projects in biomedical engineering, as well as the Siemens Young Engineer of the Year award, which is awarded by the Institute of Engineers of Ireland on the basis of final year projects in all branches of engineering.  He has also won the Irish division of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers' Queen's Jubilee competition, and will represent Ireland in the overall final in London in December 2001.

The winning project concerned the mechanics of cardiovascular stents, devices which are used to treat blocked arteries. James McGarry used Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to compute stress in a stent at various stages of deployment. Significantly, he incorporated a realistic model of crystal plasticity, and showed that it gave results which are not available through simpler, more conventional techniques. Through this miscroscale modelling approach, more realistic and accurate finite element modelling techniques have been established that can be applied to various stent designs, leading to a better understanding of the mechanical behaviour of cardiovascular stents during release and in vivo, and aiding development of a more effective stent design. The project was supervised by Dr. Peter McHugh.

More information about the Medtronic AVE award can be found in this press release, and a report on the Siemens Prize is available on the Institution of Engineers of Ireland (IEI) website. A technical summary of James McGarry's prize-winning project is available in PDF format (241 kB).

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