Experimental and Theoretical Compression Studies on Porcine Skin

Abstract

Skin can be viewed upon as a biphasic material, consisting of a solid with a free movable fluid in it (Reddy et al., 1981). The solid matrix consists of collagen and elastin fibers, embedded in a ground substance that binds most of the water. The movable, interstitial fluid is not chemically bound and can flow when a pressure gradient is present. The biphasic character can explain a number of time dependent properties of the skin. In view of the above a model has been developed, which is based on the theory of mixtures (Bowen, 1976). The goal of the present study was to find a method to measure material properties of porcine skin, using a biphasic concept and to compare the results with theoretically obtained values. A suitable experiment which has been used with success on articular cartilage (Mow et dl., 1984) is a confined compression test. It appears from this study that this test can be used for skin also and that it confirms our hypothesis about the biphasic nature of skin.