UK Precision Engineering Chard Somerset & Exeter Devon

Flexible Fracture Method inspired by skin

The Associate Professor, Guy German, in the biomedical engineering department as Binghamton University, New York, has dedicated time to researching ways to extend the lifetime of biomedical devices. He has done this through moving cracks away from the crucial components. His team at Binghamton University have developed both single and dual layered membranes from silicone based polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which has been inspired by the topography of the natural human skin. The layers are said to help control the amount of cracks and prevent damage to electrical and critical components of the device.  

“Even though this membrane looks and feels exactly like a normal, boring membrane, you stretch it and you can get cracks to deviate at 45-degree angles away from where it ordinarily would have cracked,” said research lead Guy German, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Binghamton.

“In this relatively new field of hyperelastic materials – materials that can really stretch – there’s been a lot of work, but not in the area of fracture control. Fracture control has only been explored in more brittle materials.”

“We do it without using any exotic material,” said Binghamton PhD student Christopher Maiorana, who led the work with German. “We’re not inventing some new metal or ceramic. We’re using rubber or modifying normal glass to do these things. We’ve taken this really basic idea and made it functional.”