Prediction of Pressure due to Elastic Fabric Tube Following Energy Principle

Abstract

Elastic knitted fabric tubes are used as pressure garments and pressure bandages in compression therapy to mitigate many physical ailments of human beings. Laplace law has been extensively used for prediction of pressure at the interface of human body and elastic tube by many. However, it has been stated to be inadequate in some cases. Human body is compressible because of presence of soft tissues. This characteristic has not been taken into account. In the present paper a mathematical model based on energy principle has been proposed to predict pressure by a fabric tube fitted on foam covered rigid cylinder. The model equation has shown better prediction of the interfacial pressure than that one expects based on Laplace's law.