Soft Elastomeric Capacitor for Strain and Stress Monitoring on Sutured Skin Tissues

• DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.1c01477
• Publication Date: 2021-09-28T21:44:30Z
• Authors: Han Liu; Simon Laflamme; Eric M. Zellner; Adrien Aertsens; Sarah A. Bentil; Iris V. Rivero; Thomas W. Secord
• Keywords: Strain gauge; Biomechanics

Sutures are ubiquitous medical devices for wound closures in human and veterinary medicine, suture techniques frequently evaluated by comparing tensile strengths ex vivo studies. Direct nondestructive measurement of force present sutured biological skin tissue is a key challenge biomechanical fields because the unique complex properties each specimen lack compliant sensors capable monitoring large levels strain. The authors have recently proposed soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC) sensor that consists highly scalable strain gauge transducing geometric variations into measurable change capacitance. In this study, corrugated SECs used to experimentally characterize inherent canine specimens. particular, an SEC with re-entrant hexagonal honeycomb pattern studied monitor stresses three specific patterns: simple interrupted, cruciate, intradermal patterns. Stress estimated using constitutive models based on Fractional Zener Kelvin-Voigt models, parametrized particle swarm algorithm from experimental data results validated finite element model. Results benchmarked against findings literature show valuable clinical evaluation skins. It was found both ranking performance skin's Young's modulus approach agreed reported stress at level closely matched approximate