Design and development of a biaxial testing device for material characterisation

As in the field of human psychology, the understanding of the mechanical behaviour of fibrous materials will require observation in experimentation. To study soft tissues, for instance, ex-vivo experiments using a mechanical testing system are essential to assess the hyperelastic, damage and rupture properties. However, commercial material testing systems are most often very expensive (50-100 k-euros) and may not be fully suitable for specific requirements.

In this project it is intended to design and develop a low cost biaxial testing device for material characterisation. The technological requirements are: (a) it has to be portable, (b) it will have a grip system suitable to grab soft tissue, (c) it includes a bath (for physiological solution) to control temperature of the sample; (d) it will couple with digital image correlation; (e) it will have a GUI to synchronize load, actuator and image acquisitions; (f) it will be flexible to test other types of engineering materials.