Influence of Hybridization on Tensile Behaviors of Non-Absorbable Braided Polymeric Sutures

This paper aims to investigate the effects of fiber hybridization technique on the mechanical behaviors of non-absorbable braided composite sutures. Fifteen types of hybrid braided sutures (HBSs) made of polyester (PET), polypropylene (PP), and polyamide 6 (PA6) are produced and tested to measure ultimate tensile strength (UTS), maximum strain, elastic modulus, and breaking toughness. Based on the results, it is observed that the suture material plays a significant role in the tensile and mechanical performance of HBSs, and they can be tailored through the different combinations of yarns according to the required mechanical properties. Experiments exhibit occurrence positive hybrid effect in both maximum strain and elastic modulus, and negative hybrid effect in UTS. The optimal tensile performance is associated with the hybrid structure comprising 75% PA6-12.5% PET-12.5% PP. This means the ternary structure with higher PA6 content along with PP and PET, demonstrates a synergistic effect. Thus, such a ternary composite structure is very promising for the design of novel non-absorbable sutures. Due to the absence of similar results in the specialized literature, this paper is likely to advance the state-of-the-art composite non-absorbable sutures and contribute to a better understanding of the hybridization concept for optimizing composite material systems.