ABSTRACT
Suture broken, knot slipping and tissue tearing are the main reasons of wound closure failure in clinical operation. Based on this, we simulated the suturing and healing operation by using a biological materials testing machine and investigated the tensile properties before and after knotting, relaxation property and friction property of three common sutures: silk, polyglactin 910 and polypropylene. Results show that the tensile property decreased after knotting. The tensile strength of polyglactin 910 and elongation of polypropylene were the largest. During the relaxation process, the sutures relaxed the most in the first 2 hours. The relaxation from less to more was: polyglactin 910, silk and polypropylene. Coating or monofilament could obviously reduce the surface roughness of sutures, and thus reduce the friction force of the suture-suture interface. The friction force of the suture-suture interface increased with the increasing load but did no change with the increasing velocity. The results can provide an important theoretical basis for the optimizations of suture design and knotting operation.