Studies on non-linear material properties of fibrous materials

made from animal source for medial application using artificial

neural networks

By
Gurumurthy.B.R
Assistant proIessor Fashion Design
Department oI Fashion Technology
Lovely ProIessional University
Jalandhar- Delhi G.T.Road (NH-1), Phagwara, Punjab (India) 144402
E-mail : brgmurthyIadyahoo.com / gurumurthy.15701lpu.co.in

Radhalakshmi Y.C
entral Silk Technological Research Institute
entral Silk Board,
Ministry oI Textiles, Government oI India, B.T.M layout,
Madivala, Bangalore 560 068

Medical textiles are one oI the Iast growing areas oI technical textiles today. The possibilities
oI using animal Iibers as suture materials has its own advantage .II animal Iibers like wool,
silk, rabbit and other Iiber quality coupled with production parameters is to be augmented so
that research on its utilisation as possible materials Ior medical application can be explored,
then the primary Iocus oI research would be on its suture material properties and its bio-
degradable characteristics. However the non absorbable sutures made Irom natural Iibers like
silk sutures Iinds wide application due to its characteristic properties itselI. Natural suture
materials include silk, linen, and catgut, which is actually the dried and treated intestine oI a
sheep. Silk sutures in addition to its non absorbable, sterile, non-mutagenic surgical sutures
characteristics is also composed oI natural proteinaceous component called Iibroin which is
insoluble in water and contributes to sutures mechanical properties. ArtiIicial neural
networks are used extensively to predict material properties in various sections oI textiles.
This research work Iocuses on review and analysis oI theoretical aspects oI circular braided
structures and the study on knot pull tensile strength oI silk sutures Ior medical application
using artiIicial neural networks. Silk braided surgical suture materials conIirming to USP
(United States pharmacopeias) is used to generate experimental data coupled with standard
ASTM methods used Ior determination oI input parameters to the model. Vibroscope and
Vibrodyne 400, Instron 6021 standard testers conIirming to USP have been used Ior
experimental data generation Irom Iiber and yarn analysis. Neural network modelisation is
carried out using Matlab.7 soItware. In the present research, comparisons were made with
the experimental and network predicted knot pull tensile strength values which Iall within the
objectives oI the study. In conclusion the developed prediction model in this study has
excellent correlation (R
2
0.96) with experimental values which is signiIicant Irom the view
point oI developing a prediction model based on neural networks. In addition to ANN, this
study also explores and compares natural suture material properties, its applications, their
advantages and disadvantages, production limitations and manuIacturing methods,
modelisation using ANN, hence contributing to analysis oI non-linear suture material
characteristics and study made Irom diIIerent animal sources like wool and silk.