Introduction: Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) as a biomaterial has been used in spinal implants since the 1990s. Initially, it was used for plating and interbody systems, but recently PEEK has been utilized in the posterior regions of the spine as spinal rods. The concepts of “better load sharing” and “less bone-screw interface stresses” are terms that have arisen to describe lumbar PEEK spinal dev...

Residual stresses in fibre reinforced composites can give rise to a number of undesired effects such as loss of dimensional stability and premature fracture. Hence, there is significant merit in developing processing techniques to mitigate the development of residual stresses. However, tracking and quantifying the development of these fabrication-induced stresses in real-time using conventional...

In the field of soft robotics, hydrogels possess material properties that allow them to function as both soft strain sensors and electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators. However, there is still much that needs to be understood about the curing process of hydrogels and the resulting material characteristics before devices can be reliably manufactured. In this study, we investigated the eff...