The equipment if the Biomechanics Core Facility is separated in 2 groups. The first one to measure the properties of the materials, such as elastic properties, viscoelastic properties and hardness. The second group of devices includes sample preparation methods using cryo-technics.
In order to standardize reproducible mechanical characterizations of soft (bio)materials, tissues and cells, the Biomechanics Core Facility is working as a team with the users and with good communication to share the knowledges and know-how. It is important to mention and discuss the parameters of the experiment in scientific publications to guarantee reproducibility and comparability.
The Biomechanics Core Facility is taking care of the calibration and other maintenances.If you have any question about the device or its accessories, do not hesitate to contact us!
For characterizing bulk viscoelastic properties, e.g. of hydrogels and tissues
Equipped with UV unit for photoswitching of samples
Interfacial Rheology: Double Wall Ring
Tensile testing of materials
Special setup for compression test
Equipped with 3 load cells for soft materials (5N, 100N, 500N)
Spatially and mechanically highly precise indentor system based on precalibrated cantilevers: cell stiffness, viscoelasticity, adhesion, contraction, mechanosensing in near-physiological conditions
Equipped with a fluorescence imaging module to improve usage of the system with biological systems
To come: environmental module
Bareiss DigiTest II
Hardness tester for soft tissue and polymers according to shore, IRHD and VLRH. Used for characterizing connective tissue, such as cartilage, soft, and synthetic materials. The setup includes a test stand, a receiving arm with the measuring device for forces up to 20 N, and the electronic measurement and recording unit. The samples are placed on a metal sample holder with a milled edge.
Home-built Indentation System
Calibrated indentation system with a mm-sized indenter sphere, suitable for the mechanical characterization of bulk materials.
The ball mill will be applied for preparation of soft, hard and cryogenic samples for chemical extraction, radical measurement or electron microscopy. The milling cups of metal, ceramic or agate can be used for instance for breaking down hard tissue or polymer samples, and further milling to powder in micrometer size.
For cutting specimens (0.5 μm-500 μm) (such as tissue, organoids or hydrogels) prior to histological and optical characterization.
Learn to design of part for 3D printing and more!
Results: files (part, assembly or drawing) as ipt, step, iges, stl and pdf
Possibility to work on Solidworks
Tissue slicer
For cutting alive tissue and hydrogel samples (150 μm) prior to mechanical and optical characterization.
