Belen Hernandez

ITAINNOVA

Background: Micro-texturing is an increasingly used technique that aims at improving the functional behaviour of components during their useful life, and it is applied in different industrial manufacturing processes for different purposes, such as reducing friction on dynamic rubber seals for pneumatic equipment, among others. Micro-texturing is pr...

Background: Micro-texturing is an increasingly used technique that aims at improving the functional behaviour of components during their useful life, and it is applied in different industrial manufacturing processes for different purposes, such as reducing friction on dynamic rubber seals for pneumatic equipment, among others. Micro-texturing is pr...

Micro-surface texturing of elastomeric seals is a validated method to improve the friction and wear characteristics of the seals. In this study, the injection process of high-viscosity elastomeric materials in moulds with wall microprotusions is evaluated. To this end, a novel CFD methodology is developed and implemented in OpenFOAM to address rubb...

Surface texturing is an effective method to reduce friction without the need to change materials. In this study, surface textures were transferred to rubber samples in the form of dimples, using a novel laser surface texturing (LST)—based texturing during moulding (TDM) production process, developed within the European Project MouldTex. The rubber...

A proper understanding of abdominal biomechanics is essential for improving the prevention and treatment of disorders and injuries of the abdomen. Despite numerous investigations, the exact mechanical behavior of the abdomen and the causes of many abdominal injuries are still not completely known. This is partially due to the inherent limitations o...

In high temperature metal forming processes, strong mechanical and thermal cyclic loads coexist in the formed material and in the tooling. Such a phenomenon has a negative influence in the tool life cycle. The thermal and mechanical ranges lead to the appearance of cracks on the tool surface because of thermo-mechanical fatigue damage (TMF). The ob...

Background Hernia repairs still exhibit clinical complications, i.e. recurrence, discomfort and pain and mesh features are thought to be highly influent. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the defect size and mesh type in an herniated abdominal wall using numerical models. Methods To do so, we have started from a FE model based on a...

Shot-peening is a surface impact treatment widely used to improve surface toughness and extending fatigue life of parts. The better performance of the peened parts is mainly due to residual compressive stresses generated on the surface. When additionally, this process is used to conform geometrically a component to a desired shape, this is called p...

The aim of this study was to obtain information about the mechanical properties of six meshes commonly used for hernia repair (Surgipro®, Optilene®, Infinit®, DynaMesh®, Ultrapro™ and TIGR®) by planar biaxial tests. Stress-stretch behavior and equibiaxial stiffness were evaluated, and the anisotropy was determined by testing. In particular, equibia...

Polypropylene meshes continue to be widely used for hernia repair although several competitors with the same macroporous structure yet composed of different materials have appeared on the market. This study addresses the use of one such materials, non-expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), by comparing its tissue and biomechanical behavior to tha...

La utilización del método de conformado en frío por bombardeo de perdigones, o más conocido por su anglicismo peen forming, ha sufrido un importante auge en los últimos años, en industrias como la automovilística o la aeronáutica. Se utiliza para la fabricación de piezas de geometrías complejas como es el caso de los revestimientos de las alas de l...

The absence of universally and accepted guidelines to select the most appropriate surgical mesh for each patient and type of defect in hernia surgery could complicate surgeons decisions when choosing the surgical mesh and deciding which is the best orientation of the mesh in the abdomen. An interdisciplinarywork between clinicians and engineers may...

A thermodynamically consistent three-dimensional electro-mechanical continuum model for simulating skeletal muscle contraction is presented. Active and passive response are accounted for by means of a decoupled strain energy function into passive and active contributions. The active force is obtained as the maximum tetanic force penalized by two fu...

This paper describes a method designed to model the repaired herniated human abdomen just after surgery and examine its static mechanical response to the maximum intra-abdominal pressure provoked by a physiological movement (standing cough). The model is based on the real geometry of the human abdomen bearing a large incisional hernia with several...

Background: While lightweight (LW) polypropylene (PP) meshes are been used for hernia repair, new prosthetic meshes also of low-density and with large pores have recently been introduced composed of other polymer materials. This study compares the behavior in the short-term of two macroporous LW prosthetic materials, PP and non-expanded PTFE. Met...

The aim of this work is to present a methodology to model the human abdomen to study its mechanical response and simulate hernia surgery. For this purpose, a realistic geometry of the human abdomen using magnetic resonance imaging is obtained. The model defines the different anatomical structures of the abdomen and the anisotropic mechanical proper...

Surgical procedures for hernia surgery are usually performed using prosthetic meshes. In spite of all the improvements in these biomaterials, the perfect match between the prosthesis and the implant site has not been achieved. Thus, new designs of surgical meshes are still being developed. Previous to implantation in humans, the validity of the mes...

The aim of this work is to present a methodology to model the passive mechanical behavior of the human abdomen during physiological movements. From a mechanical point of view, it is possible to predict where hernia formation is likely to occur since the areas that support higher stresses can be identified as the most vulnerable ones. For this purpo...

This paper describes a method designed to model the repaired herniated human abdomen just after surgery and examine its static mechanical response to the maximum intra-abdominal pressure provoked by a physiological movement (standing cough). The model is based on the real geometry of the human abdomen bearing a large incisional hernia with several...

Although heavyweight (HW) or lightweight (LW) polypropylene (PP) meshes are widely used for hernia repair, other alternatives have recently appeared. They have the same large-pore structure yet are composed of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). This study compares the long-term (3 and 6 months) behavior of meshes of different pore size (HW compared wi...

Routine hernia repair surgery involves the implant of synthetic mesh. However, this type of procedure may give rise to pain and bowel incarceration and strangulation, causing considerable patient disability. The purpose of this study was to compare the long-term behaviour of three commercial meshes used to repair the partially herniated abdomen in...

The material properties of meshes used in hernia surgery contribute to the overall mechanical behaviour of the repaired abdominal wall. The mechanical response of a surgical mesh has to be defined since the haphazard orientation of an anisotropic mesh can lead to inconsistent surgical outcomes. This study was designed to characterize the mechanical...

The aims of this study are to experimentally characterize the passive elastic behaviour of the rabbit abdominal wall and to develop a mechanical constitutive law which accurately reproduces the obtained experimental results. For this purpose, tissue samples from New Zealand White rabbits 2150±50 (g) were mechanically tested in vitro. Mechanical tes...

Abdominal hernia is a frequent disease and diverse problems following hernia repair could reduce the quality of patient life. This work is projected to define a computational methodology based on experimental techniques that would help surgeons in deciding which prosthesis is the most convenient depending on the type of defect and patient.

Routine hernia repair surgery involves the implant of synthetic mesh. However, this proceduremay give rise to several problems causing considerable patient disability. With the aim ofimproving surgical procedures, the healthy and the herniated human abdomen are simulatedusing finite element (FE) simulations. For that purpose, a reconstruction of th...