Thermal analysis evaluation of mechanical properties changes promoted by gamma ...

• Author(s): Abreu, Maria José Araújo Marques ; Silva, Maria Elisabete ; Ferreira, L. M. ; Oliveira, Carlos ; Casimiro, Miguel ; Coelho, Alexandra
• Date: 2002
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/1810
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Subject(s): Polymeric surgical textiles; Thermal analysis; MCNP; Radiosterilisation
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

The large number of surgical operations with pos-operative infection problems and the appearing of new infectious diseases, contribute to the development of new materials in order to answer the needs of health care services. This development must take into account the modifications promoted by sterilisation methods in materials, namely by gamma radiation. The Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Thermogravimetry (TGA) techniques show that a nonwoven and a laminate textiles maintain a good molecular cohesion, do not showing high levels of degradation, for gamma radiation dose values lower than 100 kGy in nonwoven and 200 kGy in laminate materials. The tensile strength and the elongation decrease slowly for the nonwoven textile and decrease faster for the laminate textile for 25 and 80 kGy absorbed dose. This paper shows that the DSC and TGA techniques can be helpful for the prevision of mechanical changes occurred in the materials as a consequence of the gamma irradiation.