Abstract
Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) in multifilament and braided yarns (BY) forms presents great potential for the design of numerous applications. However, such solutions fail to accomplish their requirements if the chemical and thermomechanical behaviour is not sufficiently known. Hence, a comprehensive characterisation of PVA multifilament and three BY architectures (6, 8, and 10 yarns) was performed involving the application of several techniques to evaluate the morphological, chemical, thermal, and mechanical features of those structures. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to reveal structural and morphological information. Differential thermal analysis (DTA) pointed out the glass transition temperature of PVA at 76 °C and the corresponding crystalline melting point at 210 °C. PVA BY exhibited higher tensile strength under monotonic quasi-static loading in comparison to their multifilament forms. Creep tests demonstrated that 6BY structures present the most deformable behaviour, while 8BY structures are the least deformable. Relaxation tests showed that 8BY architecture presents a more expressive variation of tensile stress, while 10BY offered the least. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) revealed storage and loss moduli curves with similar transition peaks for the tested structures, except for the 10BY. Storage modulus is always four to six times higher than the loss modulus.
Highlights
The most commonly used techniques to repair bone injuries involve the use of mechanical fixation systems that employ wires, screws, grids, or metal plates [1]
Since polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is usually obtained by the hydrolysis of poly(vinyl acetate) [39,40], these results suggest that the PVA used in these fibres is not fully hydrolysed
The performed extensive analysis of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a fundamental task to understand the potentialities of this material in applications requiring the employment of PVA yarns (Y) and braided yarns (BY)
Summary
The most commonly used techniques to repair bone injuries involve the use of mechanical fixation systems that employ wires, screws, grids, or metal plates (i.e., osteosynthesis plates) [1]. Numerous solutions could be developed using hydrophilic water-soluble synthetic polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in a fibrous form if its mechanical behaviour (both monotonic and viscoelastic) was sufficiently known. Those solutions could be customised with a proper fibrous architecture of PVA according to bone fracture configuration, fragment size, and location. Zhao et al [26] analysed the effect of different types of PVA fibres on creep behaviour (e.g., steel, PVA, polypropylene, and basalt fibres). Three types of braided yarns (6, 8, and 10) were formed from 6 PVA yarn (Figure 1) This process was executed in a TRENZ-EXPORT® (Barcelona, Spain) vertical braiding machine, model 16/100, serial number 00/2295.
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