Abstract:

Aligned silk fibroin (SF)/poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) composite nanofibrous membranes were fabricated by electrospinning with a rotating drum as a collector. FE-SEM was used to characterize the morphologies of nanofibers and the degree of orientation of nanofibers was evaluated by MATLAB. And the mechanical properties of electrospun nanofibrous membranes were tested by compact biaxial tensile tester. The results showed that the degree of orientation of nanofibers was improved with increasing the rotation speed of the drum. The nanofibrous membranes exhibited an anisotropic mechanical behavior. Meanwhile the membranes obviously behaved the characteristics of nonlinearity and unelasticity. A mathematical model of relationship between tensile loading and stretch rate under biaxial cyclic tensile action was established by fitting the experimental curve. Taking the sample obtained while the drum rotated at 4.70m/s as an illustration, the model fitting curve is highly consistent with the experimental curve.

Key words: electrospun nanofibrous membrane, aligned fiber, mechanical property, biaxial tensile test, mathematical model