Abstract
The viscoelastic properties of cylinders (diameter 5 mm, height 2.2 ± 0.2 mm) of Nagor silicone elastomer of
medium hardness, were investigated before and after the specimens had undergone accelerated aging in saline solution at
70°C for 38, 76 and 114 days (to simulate aging at 37°C, for 1, 2 and 3 years, respectively). All sets of specimens were
immersed in physiological saline solution at 37°C during testing and the properties were measured using dynamic mechanical
analysis (DMA). A sinusoidal cyclic compression of 40 N ± 5 N was applied over a frequency range, f , of 0.02–25 Hz.
Values of the storage, E
, and loss, E
, moduli were found to depend on f ; the dependence of E
or E
on the logarithm
(base 10) of f was represented by a second-order polynomial. After accelerated aging, the E
and E
values did not increase
significantly (p < 0.05). Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that accelerated aging did not affect the
surface morphology of silicone. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) showed that
accelerated aging had a negligible effect on the surface chemical structures of the materia
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 415 |
Number of pages | 423 |
Journal | Bio-Medical Materials & Engineering |
Volume | 25 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Accelerated aging, compression, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), silicone, viscoelasticity