Morphological and mechanical study of microfiber bundle

• Main Author: Li, Jiande.
• Other Authors: Chua Chee Kai
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials::Biomaterials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/16952
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

A tendon is a fibrous band of collagenous tissue that is primarily used to transfer the force created by the muscle to the bone, thus allowing possible joint movement. When the tendon becomes impaired, tissue engineering uses tissue scaffold that serves as matrix for tissue growth, to restore and reconstruct the function of impaired tissues. Fibrous scaffold is an example of a type of tissue scaffold and the biomaterials used for fibrous scaffold are polymers, which could either be natural or synthetic. For synthetic fibrous scaffold, the polymer fibers could be fabricated using the various spinning techniques available in the market. This project aims to determine the conditions that are needed to produce 10 µm melt-spun poly(ε -caprolactone) – PCL microfiber bundle (10 µm is chosen to biomimick the diameter of collagen fiber in a tendon scaffold) by using 2 to the power of k Design of Experiment (DOE) to determine the factors that affect the melt spinning of PCL fiber bundle. Once the dominant factors are determined, they could be used to control the flow rate of PCL fiber bundle and 10 µm PCL microfiber bundle could then be produced by tuning the take up speed. Next, various 10 µm PCL microfiber bundle samples are produced for tensile testing to obtain the load-extension curve of 10 µm PCL microfiber bundle. Experimental results show that the orifice’s diameter and temperature has a significant effect on the flow rate of PCL fiber bundle and thus by manipulating these two parameters in the melt spinning process, different set of conditions could be used to produce PCL fiber of any diameter that is required. In this project which focuses on the fabrication of 10 µm PCL microfiber bundle, it was found that the take up speed is 483rpm when an orifice of diameter 2mm, temperature of 130°C and a 32.02mm rotating spindle is used and under this take up speed, two set of samples of 10 µm PCL microfiber bundle, each produced under different duration such as 1 and 2 minute respectively, are produced for tensile testing whereby a study and comparison is made between the structural properties of the 1 and 2 minute PCL microfiber bundle.