Strong beautiful hair is universally desired across various cultures. Hence, the ways in which cleaning conditioning, grooming and styling processes affect the strength, feel and manageability of hair is of interest to beauty care science and technology. Human hair is a complex nanocomposite biological fiber. In this thesis, experiments are performed to better understand mechanical and electric...

Tendons are designed to absorb and transfer large amounts of tensile load. The well organised, strong yet flexible, extracellular matrix allows for this function. Many tendons are also subject to compressive loads, such as at the entheses, as the tendon wraps around bony protuberances or from internal compression during tensile loading or twisting. Tendinopathy, the clinical syndrome of pain an...

The inherent strength of individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs) offers considerable opportunity for the development of advanced, lightweight composite structures. Recent work in the fabrication and application of CNT forms such as yarns and sheets has addressed early nanocomposite limitations with respect to nanotube dispersion and loading and has pushed the technology toward structural composite a...

Entangled networks of carbon nanofibers are characterized both mechanically and electrically. Results for both tensile and compressive loadings of the entangled networks are presented for various densities. Mechanically, the nanofiber ensembles follow the micromechanical model originally proposed by van Wyk nearly 70 years ago. Interpretations are given on the mechanisms occurring during loadin...

Nanomaterials have recently been found to exhibit auxetic behavior, or a negative Poisson's ratio, whereby the lateral dimensions of the material expand, rather than shrink, in response to applied tensile loading. In this brief review, we use the form of question-answer to highlight key points and outstanding issues related to the field of auxetic nanomaterials.

Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) may be initiated by abnormal mechanical loading, which can alter both cartilage metabolism and mechanical behavior [1]. OA of the hip affects approximately 10% of the population [2]. Understanding the causes of hip OA is the first step in developing treatment strategies to delay or reverse disease progression. Surface fibrillation is common in early-stage OA, a...

Three-dimensional enriched finite elements are used to compute mixed-mode stress intensity factors (SIFs) for three-dimensional cracks in elastic functionally graded materials (FGMs) that are subject to general mixed-mode loading. The method, which advantageously does not require special mesh configuration/modifications and post-processing of finite element results, is an enhancement of previou...

nowadays, soil reinforcement using polymer elements have been investigated by a number of researchers in order to increase the load capacity of soils. reinforcing soils using fibers is a method of soil improvement, which offers a homogenous mixture in combination with soils, regarding their tensile strength. this combination maintains pressure loading capacity and properties in mutual resistant...

The current study was designed to investigate the mechanical response of a polyetheretherketone-on-polyethylene total knee replacement device during a deep squat. Application of this high-demand loading condition can identify weaknesses of the polyetheretherketone relative to cobalt-chromium. This study investigated whether the implant is strong enough for this type of loading, whether cement s...

The superelastic behavior of coil springs of a Ti-Ni shape memory alloy was investigated using loading-unloading cycling tests under isothemal temperatures. The effects of the Ni content and shape memory treatment temperatures on the cyclic behavior in the superelastic deformation were investigated. The deformation behavior within the elastic region of the parent phase scarcely changes during t...