The Tissue Testing suite in the Bioengineering Laboratory is temperature and humidity controlled, which renders it suitable for controlled preparation of samples of sensitive materials such as acrylic bone cement and animal tissue. It is equipped with a -20°C ‘walk in cold store’ for larger specimen storage (including human cadaverous material).
The laboratory houses the Bioengineering Science group's Instron 8870 multiaxial servo-hydraulic materials testing machine, which provides axial and torsional testing capabilities with capacities of +/- 25 kN and +/- 100 Nm respectively, together with an actuator of +/- 1 kN capacity which can be configured to provide additional linear displacement/loading of test specimens. In addition, the Bose ElectroForce 3200 electrical materials testing machine of 450N capacity (with 250N and 25N load cells) and the CellScale Ustretch and Microsquisher make possible the microscale mechanical analysis with a force resolution of 10nN for smaller, fragile tissue samples (e.g.engineered tissue growth matrix). A BioDent reference point indenter can be used to make clinically relevant mechanical assessments of tissue health both in vitro and in-vivo with hard materials such as bone being well defined.
Complementary non-destructive analysis techniques include a VIC 3D digital image correlation system for surface strain measurement and a 10 channel acoustic emission system for damage monitoring. A Vishay 7000 Series data logger and Strainsmart software, allowing 32 channel strain gauge, 8 channel thermocouple and 8 channel analogue recording, is also available for experimental testing.