Design of a loading system for cyclic test on sutured organs

Giulia Pascoletti; Maria Chiara Pressanto; Giovanni Putame; Mara Terzini; Giordano Franceschini; Elisabetta M Zanetti

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2020.100988

Design of a loading system for cyclic test on sutured organs

MethodsX. 2020 Jul 8:7:100988. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2020.100988. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Giulia Pascoletti¹, Maria Chiara Pressanto², Giovanni Putame³, Mara Terzini³, Giordano Franceschini¹, Elisabetta M Zanetti¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Italy.
² Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria - Sezione Chirurgia e Radiodiagnostica, University of Perugia, Italy.
³ PolitoMed Lab, DIMEAS, Politecnico di Torino, Italy.

Abstract

The design of loading systems to test biologic samples is often challenging, due to shape variability and non-conventional loading set-ups. In addition to this, large economic investments would not be justified since the loading set up is usually designed for one single or for a limited range of applications. The object of this work is the development of a loading set-up finalised to on-site testing of sutures whose main function is applying a localised tensile load. The main challenges of this design process can be so summarized:•Applying cyclic tensile loads on the suture wire, mimicking the physiologic condition where both suture anchorage points have a certain compliance;•Designing a loading system as versatile as possible, in order to be able to accommodate organs with different geometries and sizes;•Keeping low both the complexity and costs of realization.All these considerations and the design calculi are here reported in detail, discussing the novelty of the system, and its main advantages.

Keywords: Anchorage points migration; Cyclic loads; Suture distraction; Suture test.