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The aim of this work is to characterise the in-plane mechanical behaviour of human skin in vivo. For this purpose the structural skin model proposed by Lanir [1] is employed and a mixed numerical-experimental method is developed. The numerical-experimental method is based on the confrontation of measured data from an experiment, with calculated data from a finite element model, eventually leading to the determination of some of the parameters of a constitutive model, in the present case Lanir's Skin Model. Since collagen, the main constituent of skin, dominates the anisotropic and non-linear behaviour of skin, the parameters of Lanir's Skin Model concerning the mechanical behaviour of the collagen fibres are estimated. In vivo experiments were carried out on the volar forearm. During the experiments, reaction forces and the displacement field at different states of deformation are measured. Both data sets are used for the determination of the parameters.

-Injection moulding is a flexible production technique for the manufacture of complex shaped, thin walled polymer products that require minimal finishing. During processing, the polymer experiences a complex deformation and temperature history that affects the final properties of the product.In a growing number of applications, injection-moulded products must meet high demands concerning their properties and dimensional stability. As a consequence, the ultimate aim of numerical simulations of the injection-moulding process is not only to analyse the processing stage but also to calculate the mechanical (and optical) properties of the product, starting from the material properties and the processing conditions. This also requires measurement techniques that can determine molecular orientation, residual stresses and density distributions.In all recent models of the injection-moulding process, the so-called 2iD approach is employed, referring to limitations of the mould geometry to narrow, weakly curved channels. Thus the ratio of the cavity thickness h and a characteristic length 1 in the mid-plane of the cavity must be much less than unity. In this paper an attempt is made to model all the stages of the production process, using this 2iD approach. The analysis is restricted to amorphous thermoplastics.Residual stresses in injection-moulded products stem from two main sources: first, the frozen-in flow-induced stresses, caused by viscoelastic flow of the polymer during the filling and post-filling stage of the injection-moulding process. These stresses correspond with the orientation of macromolecules; second, the thermally-and pressure-induced stresses, which are caused by differential shrinkage. In absolute value, the thermally-induced stresses are usually substantially larger than the frozen-in flowinduced stresses. However, the molecular orientation, as reflected in the frozen-in flow-induced stresses, determines the anisotropy of mechanical, thermal and optical properties and influences the long-term dimensional stability of an injection-moulded product.A decoupled method is proposed to calculate flow-induced stresses. Firstly, the kinematics of the flow field are determined, employing a viscous, generalized Newtonian constitutive law for the Cauchy stress tensor in combination with the balance laws. This is realized for all stages of the process: injection, packing, holding and cooling. The flow kinematics are subsequently substituted in a viscoelastic constitutive equation to calculate the transient stresses. Two constitutive models are used: a compressible version of the Leonov model (differential formulation) and a compressible version of the Wagner model (integral formulation). In the decoupled method, the flow kinematics are, consequently, supposed not to be influenced by the viscoelastic character of the flowing polymer melt. This decoupled method has a number of advantages compared to a coupled viscoelastic computation: the computation time is reduced considerably, an arbitrary viscoelastic c...

In all cases, there was an increase in TEWL immediately after removal of the solution. The significant differences in decay time and amount of water absorbed between the three molarities indicate that osmotic forces do play an important role in the water uptake.