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A fibrous precursor for bone repair composites was made by coating poly(L‐lactide) (PLLA) fibers with hydroxyapatite (HA) using a biomimetic method. To enhance the bonding between the HA coating and the PLLA fiber, PLLA fibers were etched with either sodium hydroxide or sodium hypochlorite to generate carboxyl groups on fiber surfaces. The experiments were designed to determine the influence of etching on the fiber surface morphology and chemistry as well as the subsequent HA coating on the etched fiber surfaces. It was found that the etching pretreatment increased the roughness as well as the hydrophilicity of fibers, indicating that hydrolysis of PLLA chains had taken place on fiber surfaces. The etching pretreatment also promoted HA coating formation by introducing thicker coating on the surface of fibers with a longer etching time, a higher etching concentration, or with NaOCl as the etching agent. A mechanism of surface hydrolysis and oxidation of PLLA was proposed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which reported the results of numerical simulations for the change of both mechanical and electrical properties of anisotropically filled elastomers. Problem formulation and numerical simulation; Results and discussion; Conclusion.

Describes the fabrication of a rheo-light scattering instrument for investigating the influence of shear on the phase behavior of polymer blends from a commercial parallel-plate rheometer. Projection of the laser light scattering; Angular velocities generated by the rheometer; Performance and accuracy of the light-scattering instrument.