Opto-thermo-mechanical Characterization for Polyester and Polyamide Surgical Sutures

Abstract

Abstract This work studies the opto-thermo-mechanical properties of two different surgical sutures using interferometry. The polarizing Pluta interference microscope combined with opto-thermo-mechanical (OTM) device were used to study the effect of drawing on monofilament polyester (PET) and polyamide (PA) surgical sutures at room temperature. The variation of the refractive indices and the birefringence of both PET and PA sutures with different draw ratios were determined. The resulting data was used to calculate the optical orientation function and the average work per chain. The stress–strain curve was studied to estimate some mechanical parameters; yield stress, yield strain, Young's modulus and strain optical coefficient. The variations of the refractive the index profile were calculated for different draw ratios. In addition we studied the effect of temperature, during the drawing process, on monofilament PET suture. The obtained results provide important data for better characterization of suture materials.