Traditional testing of stent and stent grafts (to standards such as ASTM F2477) involves subjecting complete devices to pressure pulsation simulating blood flow for a pre-specified number of cycles. Even if the device has not fractured, a simple pass/fail criterion is used for the test to succeed. Industry work is being undertaken to attempt to develop improved in vitro methods for characterizing and evaluating cardiovascular implant devices to provide more information about when and under what conditions fracture will take place.