Introduction

Vascular grafts are essential for cardiovascular reconstruction, haemodialysis access, and aneurysm repair. While synthetic materials like ePTFE and Dacron dominate clinical use, they face challenges including thrombosis, intimal hyperplasia, and infection. Corrugated biopolymeric grafts offer a promising alternative, combining mechanical stability with biocompatibility. However, balancing haemodynamic performance, structural integrity, and infection resistance remains critical. This study evaluates corrugated biopolymeric grafts, emphasising their mechanical behaviour under physiological pressures, computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-guided haemodynamic optimisation, and novel antimicrobial strategies to mitigate biofilm formation.

Methods

Corrugated grafts were fabricated and their mechanical performance was analysed using COMSOL Multiphysics® simulations to model the stress distribution, pressure resistance, and fatigue behaviour under a pulsatile flow. Antimicrobial functionality was integrated. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to assess their haemodynamic compatibility.

Results

The COMSOL simulations demonstrated that the corrugated designs showed enhanced mechanical stability under cyclic pressure while maintaining compliance comparable to that of the native vessels. The CFD-based haemodynamic modelling confirmed a reduced turbulent flow in the corrugated regions, minimizing thrombogenic risks. Saturability and handling met the surgical standards in the benchtop evaluations.

Conclusions

This work establishes corrugated biopolymeric grafts as a multifunctional solution for vascular reconstruction, uniquely addressing mechanical resilience and CFD-optimized haemodynamics by synergizing the computational design (COMSOL/CFD) with antimicrobial innovation, and these grafts outperformed conventional synthetics in their preclinical metrics. Future work will focus on their in vivo validation and clinical translation, positioning corrugated biopolymeric grafts as a transformative advancement in vascular prosthesis engineering.