Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This proposal concerns the establishment of a Tissue Characterization Facility in the Centre for Biomechatronic and Healthcare Innovations in Mechatronic Systems Engineering at Simon Fraser University (SFU). SFU recently developed the Mechatronic Systems Engineering Program and has limited mechanical test equipment. There are no systems available that have the capacity to test compliant biological tissues, such as the spinal cord, at rates similar to traumatic injury. In addition there are no systems that have the capacity to test membranes, thin films or tissue sheets. As a result, there is an urgent need for the requested system. The Bose Electroforce TestBench system is designed for small component testing and because of its modularity a broad range of test configurations and performance capabilities are possible. In addition, as testing needs change the system can be reconfigured and new components may be added. The primary features of the system are its high rate capacity (up to 3.2 m/s), stable functioning when testing small loads, and biaxial test capabilities (for membranes, sheets and films). This application is submitted in conjunction with Dr. Sparrey's NSERC Discovery grant ""Patient Specific Modeling for the Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury"" and is needed to provide material inputs for computational models of injury and provide experimental validation of these models. In addition, due to the limited mechanical test equipment at SFU, five co-applicants also urgently need this equipment. The applicants have diverse research areas, many of them NSERC sponsored projects and include spinal cord injury simulation, synthetic muscle and engineered tissue development, photoresponsive self-healing polymer creation, nano material development, and wearable hip protector design. This system will be well used at SFU and contribute critical mechanical testing data to advance each of these research endeavors.