The large surface area and ability to retain moisture of textile structures enable microorganisms’ growth, which causes a range of undesirable effects, not only on the textile itself, but also on the user. Due to the public health awareness of the pathogenic effects on personal hygiene and associated health risks, over the last few years, intensive research has been promoted in order to minimize microbes’ growth on textiles. Therefore, to impart an antimicrobial ability to textiles, different approaches have been studied, being mainly divided into the inclusion of antimicrobial agents in the textile polymeric fibers or their grafting onto the polymer surface. Regarding the antimicrobial agents, different types have been used, such as quaternary ammonium compounds, triclosan, metal salts, polybiguanides or even natural polymers. Any antimicrobial treatment performed on a textile, besides being efficient against microorganisms, must be non-toxic to the consumer and to the environment. This review mainly intends to provide an overview of antimicrobial agents and treatments that can be performed to produce antimicrobial textiles, using chemical or physical approaches, which are under development or already commercially available in the form of isolated agents or textile fibers or fabrics.

The aliphatic polyesters are widely used in biomedical applications since they are susceptible to hydrolytic and/or enzymatic chain cleavage, leading to α-hydroxyacids, generally metabolized in the human body. This is particularly useful for many biomedical applications, especially, for temporary mechanical supports in regenerative medical devices. Ideally, the degradation should be compatible with the tissue recovering. In this work, the evolution of mechanical properties during degradation is discussed based on experimental data. The decrease of tensile strength of PLA-PCL fibers follows the same trend as the decrease of molecular weight, and so it can also be modeled using a first order equation. For each degradation stage, hyperelastic models such as Neo-Hookean, Mooney-Rivlin and second reduced order, allow a reasonable approximation of the material behavior. Based on this knowledge, constitutive models that describe the mechanical behavior during degradation are proposed and experimentally validated. The proposed theoretical models and methods may be adapted and used in other biodegradable materials, and can be considered fundamental tools in the design of regenerative medical devices where strain energy is an important requirement, such as, for example, ligaments, cartilage and stents.

This bibliographic review is focused on ligament tissue rehabilitation, its anatomy-physiology, and, mainly, on the dimensioning considerations of a composite material solution. The suture strength is problematic during the tissue recovering, implying reduction of mobility for several months. However, early postoperative active mobilization may enable a faster and more effective recovering of tissue biomechanical functions. As the risk of tendon rupture becomes a significant concern, a repair technique must be used to withstand the tensile forces generated by active mobilization. However, to avoid stress shielding effect on ligament tissue, an augmentation device must be designed on stiffness basis, that preferably will decrease. Absorbable biocomposite reinforcements have been used to allow early postoperative active mobilization and avoid the shortcomings of current repair solutions. Tensile strength decrease of the repair, during the initial inflammatory phase, is expected, derived from oedema and tendon degradation. In the fibroblastic phase, stiffness and strength will increase, which will stabilize during the remodeling phase. The reinforcement should be able to carry the dynamic load due to locomotion with a mechanical behavior similar to the undamaged natural tissue, during all rehabilitation process. Moreover, the degradation rate must also be compatible with the ligament tissue recovering. The selection and combination of different biodegradable materials, in order to make the biocomposite reinforcement functionally compatible to the damaged sutured tissue, in terms of mechanical properties and degradation rate, is a major step on the design process. Modelling techniques allow pre-clinical evaluation of the reinforcement functional compatibility, and the optimization by comparison of different composite solutions in terms of biomechanical behavior.

Polymer-matrix composites are widely used in engineering applications. Yet, environmental factors impact their macroscale fatigue and creep performances significantly, owing to several mechanisms acting at the microstructure level. Herein, we analyse the effects of water uptake that are responsible for swelling and, over time and in enough quantity, for hydrolysis. Seawater, due to a combination of high salinity and pressures, low temperature and biotic media present, also contributes to the acceleration of fatigue and creep damage. Similarly, other liquid corrosive agents penetrate into cracks induced by cyclic loading and cause dissolution of the resin and breakage of interfacial bonds. UV radiation either increases the crosslinking density or scissions chains, embrittling the surface layer of a given matrix. Temperature cycles close to the glass transition damage the fibre–matrix interface, promoting microcracking and hindering fatigue and creep performance. The microbial and enzymatic degradation of biopolymers is also studied, with the former responsible for metabolising specific matrices and changing their microstructure and/or chemical composition. The impact of these environmental factors is detailed for epoxy, vinyl ester and polyester (thermoset); polypropylene, polyamide and poly etheretherketone (thermoplastic); and for poly lactic acid, thermoplastic starch and polyhydroxyalkanoates (biopolymers). Overall, the environmental factors mentioned hamper the fatigue and creep performances, altering the mechanical properties of the composite or causing stress concentrations through microcracks, promoting earlier failure. Future studies should focus on other matrices beyond epoxy as well as on the development of standardised testing methods.

Biodegradable polymers such as poly(lactic) acid (PLA) have been studied for biomaterials applications such as natural human ligament replacement, however these materials could be applied to other sectors as aerospace, aeronautics, automotive, food packaging. PLA presents a relatively brittle with a mode I fracture behavior, being often blend with other biodegradable or non-degradable polymers to improve its fracture energy. For some existing applications, PLA components exhibit accumulated permanent deformation resulting from dynamic mechanical inputs, resulting on failure by laxity of parts. Aiming the improvement of PLA mechanical properties, the inclusion of carbon nanofillers into PLA matrix, in particular, CNT-COOH and GNP have been developed, due to their strong sp2 carbon-carbon bondings and their geometric arrangement that enhance mechanical properties of the polymer matrix. PLA and nanocomposites were produced by melt blending followed by compression molding in a hot press, with small weight percentages of nanofillers added to the matrix. Quasi static tensile tests were performed on a mechanical testing machine (Instron™ ElectroPuls E1000) along with failure analysis of specimens with centered crack with digital image correlation, revealing strain distribution along specimens