Downey Austin R J, Yan Jin, Zellner Eric M, Kraus Karl H, Rivero Iris V, Laflamme Simon
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States.
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States.
BMC Vet Res. 2019 Jan 25;15(1):40. doi: 10.1186/s12917-018-1755-y.
Suture materials and techniques are frequently evaluated in ex vivo studies by comparing tensile strengths. However, the direct measurement techniques to obtain the tensile forces in canine skin are not available, and, therefore, the conditions suture lines undergo is unknown. A soft elastomeric capacitor is used to monitor deformation in the skin over time by sensing strain. This sensor was applied to a sample of canine skin to evaluate its capacity to sense strain in the sample while loaded in a dynamic material testing machine. The measured strain of the sensor was compared with the strain measured by the dynamic testing machine. The sample of skin was evaluated with and without the sensor adhered.
In this study, the soft elastomeric capacitor was able to measure strain and a correlation was made to stress using a modified Kelvin-Voigt model for the canine skin sample. The sensor significantly increases the stiffness of canine skin when applied which required the derivation of mechanical models for interpretation of the results.
Flexible sensors can be applied to canine skin to investigate the inherent biomechanical properties. These sensors need to be lightweight and highly elastic to avoid interference with the stress across a suture line. The sensor studied here serves as a prototype for future sensor development and has demonstrated that a lightweight highly elastic sensor is needed to decrease the effect on the sensor/skin construct. Further studies are required for biomechanical characterization of canine skin.
缝线材料和技术在体外研究中常通过比较拉伸强度来评估。然而，目前尚无直接测量犬类皮肤拉伸力的技术，因此，缝线处的受力情况尚不清楚。一种柔软的弹性电容器通过感应应变来监测皮肤随时间的变形。该传感器被应用于犬类皮肤样本，以评估其在动态材料试验机加载时感应样本应变的能力。将传感器测得的应变与动态试验机测得的应变进行比较。对粘贴传感器和未粘贴传感器的皮肤样本进行评估。
在本研究中，柔软的弹性电容器能够测量应变，并使用修正的开尔文-沃伊特模型将其与应力建立关联，用于犬类皮肤样本。当应用该传感器时，显著增加了犬类皮肤的硬度，这就需要推导力学模型来解释结果。
柔性传感器可应用于犬类皮肤，以研究其固有的生物力学特性。这些传感器需要重量轻且弹性高，以避免干扰缝线处的应力。本文研究的传感器可作为未来传感器开发原型，已证明需要一种重量轻、高弹性的传感器来减少对传感器/皮肤结构的影响。犬类皮肤的生物力学特性还需要进一步研究。
