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New MEMS Tweezers for the Viscoelastic Characterization of Soft Materials at the Microscale

As many studies show, there is a relation between the tissue’s mechanical characteristics and some specific diseases. Knowing this relationship would help early diagnosis or microsurgery. In this paper, a new method for measuring the viscoelastic properties of soft materials at the microscale is pro...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Di Giamberardino, Paolo, Bagolini, Alvise, Bellutti, Pierluigi, Rudas, Imre J., Verotti, Matteo, Botta, Fabio, Belfiore, Nicola P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30393290
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi9010015
Descripción
Sumario:As many studies show, there is a relation between the tissue’s mechanical characteristics and some specific diseases. Knowing this relationship would help early diagnosis or microsurgery. In this paper, a new method for measuring the viscoelastic properties of soft materials at the microscale is proposed. This approach is based on the adoption of a microsystem whose mechanical structure can be reduced to a compliant four bar linkage where the connecting rod is substituted by the tissue sample. A procedure to identify both stiffness and damping coefficients of the tissue is then applied to the developed hardware. Particularly, stiffness is calculated solving the static equations of the mechanism in a desired configuration, while the damping coefficient is inferred from the dynamic equations, which are written under the hypothesis that the sample tissue is excited by a variable compression force characterized by a suitable wave form. The whole procedure is implemented by making use of a control system.