Viscoelastic behavior of textile artificial ligaments

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to describe and model viscoelastic behavior of textile anterior cruciate ligament prostheses. For this purpose, mechanical and viscoelastic properties of woven and braided artificial ligaments were studied. These structures were manufactured with the same braided yarn and the same number of yarns. The mechanical properties of the two structures, such as tensile strength, strain at break, work and stiffness were measured by using a constant speed gradient dynamometer. In order to determine the viscoelastic modulus of the two structures, a rheological model was proposed and the correlation between experimental and theoretical creep and relaxation curves were studied. The energy dissipation and the residual deformation were measured with an application developed by using Microsoft Visual Basic software. The obtained results showed that textile structure influences prosthesis viscoelastic and mechanical properties, material damping, hysteresis and residual deformation. The nonlinear viscoelastic model permitted to evaluate the elastic and the viscous modulus of the braided and woven structures and to describe its time-dependent deformation. This study may serve as a method for the selection of the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. © 2009 Asian Network for Scientific Information.