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Assessing stiffness of nanofibres in bacterial cellulose hydrogels: Numerical-experimental framework

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-06-29, 11:12 authored by Xing Gao, Emrah Sozumert, Zhijun Shi, Guang Yang, Vadim SilberschmidtVadim Silberschmidt
This work presents a numerical-experimental framework for assessment of stiffness of nanofibres in a fibrous hydrogel – bacterial cellulose (BC) hydrogel – based on a combination of in-aqua mechanical testing, microstructural analysis and finite-element (FE) modelling. Fibrous hydrogels attracted growing interest as potential replacements to some tissues. To assess their applicability, a comprehensive understanding of their mechanical response under relevant conditions is desirable; a lack of such knowledge is mainly due to changes at microscale caused by deformation that are hard to evaluate in-situ because of the dimensions of nanofibres and aqueous environment. So, discontinuous FE simulations could provide a feasible solution; thus, properties of nanofibres could be characterised with a good accuracy. An alternative – direct tests with commercial testing systems – is cumbersome at best. Hence, in this work, a numerical-experimental framework with advantages of convenience and relative easiness in implementation is suggested to determine the stiffness of BC nanofibres. The obtained magnitudes of 53.7–64.9 GPa were assessed by calibrating modelling results with the original experimental data.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the 7th European Community Framework Programme for financial support through a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) Project entitled “Micro-Multi-Material Manufacture to Enable Multifunctional Miniaturised Devices (M6)” (Grant No. PIRSES-GA-2010-269113). Additional support from China-European Union Technology Cooperation Programme (Grant No. 1110) is also acknowledged.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Materials Science and Engineering C

Volume

77

Pages

9 - 18

Citation

GAO, X. ... et al, 2017. Assessing stiffness of nanofibres in bacterial cellulose hydrogels: Numerical-experimental framework. Materials Science and Engineering C, 77, pp. 9-18.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-03-25

Publication date

2017

Notes

This paper was published in the journal Materials Science and Engineering C and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2017.03.231.

ISSN

0928-4931

Language

  • en

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