Characterization of human female breast and abdominal skin elasticity using a bulge test.

Characterization of material properties of human skin is required to develop a physics-based biomechanical model that can predict deformation of female breast after cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. In this paper, we have adopted an experimental approach to characterize the biaxial response of human skin using bulge tests. Skin specimens were harvested from breast and abdominal skin of female subjects who underwent mastectomy and/or reconstruction at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and who provided informed consent.

Nucleation and propagation of voltage-driven wrinkles in an inflated dielectric elastomer balloon.

Dielectric elastomer (DE) transducers frequently undergo voltage-induced large deformation, which may lead to mechanical instabilities. Here, we investigate wrinkle formation and propagation on the surface of a DE membrane mounted on an air chamber and subjected to a step voltage. Our experiments show that the geometric characteristics of the wrinkle morphology and the nucleation sites depend on the inflation pressure and the applied voltage.