Design of a loading system for cyclic test on sutured organs

The design of loading systems to test biologic samples is often challenging, due to shape variability and non-conventional loading set-ups. In addition to this, large economic investments would not be justified since the loading set up is usually designed for one single or for a limited range of applications. The object of this work is the development of a loading set-up finalised to on-site testing of sutures whose main function is applying a localised tensile load. The main challenges of this design process can be so summarized: • Applying cyclic tensile loads on the suture wire, mimicking the physiologic condition where both suture anchorage points have a certain compliance; • Designing a loading system as versatile as possible, in order to be able to accommodate organs with different geometries and sizes; • Keeping low both the complexity and costs of realization.All these considerations and the design calculi are here reported in detail, discussing the novelty of the system, and its main advantages.