OBJECTIVES Maxillofacial prosthetic materials are used to replace facial parts lost through disease or trauma. Silicone rubbers are the materials of choice, however it is widely accepted that these materials do not possess ideal properties. The objective of this study was to assess the properties of a range of commercially available silicone rubber maxillofacial materials and make recommendatio...

In this paper a semi cylindrical fluid filled hyperelastic finger model for soft contact has been developed from the basic principles of mechanics. The deformation parameters namely contact width and radial deflection were calculated for different applied forces. To validate this analytical model, compression tests were conducted on silicone rubber finger specimens . Contact width and radial de...

The ability of hardness discrimination in 11 implant denture wearers was compared with those in 10 bridge wearers and 11 normal dentate subjects. The hardness discrimination was tested using silicone rubber blocks having rubber hardness that ranged at intervals of 10 degrees from 30 degrees to 70 degrees. Using a rubber block with rubber hardness of 50 degrees as a standard, the ability of disc...

The dynamic behaviour of the potentiometric carbon dioxide electrode is predicted by means of a digital simulation that considers both diffusion and reaction kinetics. The method allows for complete description of the electrode response without requiring the assumption that one of these processes can be neglected. The validity of the simulation was tested experimentally by using a commercial pC...

For about two decades, investigators around the world have been trying to develop a safe, 95 percent effective method of nonsurgical female sterilization that could be performed under local anesthesia on an outpatient basis by nonphysicians, preferably after only a brief training period. Such a method has been called vital for meeting the worldwide demand for voluntary sterilization, since it i...

Tesicon, one of the commercially available 'silicone rubber' lenses, was used in the correction of aphakic patients. In 74% of cases the lenses were considered successful for a daily wear regimen by the patient. Furthermore, a small number of patients could wear this lens without interruption for 3 to 6 days at a time. Despite this good acceptance by patients, corneal problems (mainly staining)...

A micro-pillar-based silicone rubber adhesive coated with a thin silicone oil layer is investigated in this paper for developing friction-based clamping mechanisms for robotic endoscopic microcapsules. These adhesives are shown to enhance the frictional force between the capsule and the intestinal wall by a factor of about seven over a non-patterned flat elastomer material. In this study, tests...

This paper introduces a concept that allows the creation of low-resistance composites using a network of compliant conductive aggregate units, connected through contact, embedded within the composite. Due to the straight-forward fabrication method of the aggregate, conductive composites can be created in nearly arbitrary shapes and sizes, with a lower bound near the length scale of the conducti...

An artificial elastic finger for grasping an object, which we call an “artificial finger skin” is designed. Characteristics of the artificial finger skin are as follows: First, it has ridges at the surface and tactile sensors distributed underneath the ridges same as finger of human. Second, it has a curved surface in broad perspective. Third, it is made of an elastic silicone rubber so as to t...