Mechanical Properties Of Hydrated, Electrospun Polycaprolactone (PCL) Nanofibers

Polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers are a promising material for biomedical applications due to their biocompatibility, slow degradation rate, and thermal stability. We electrospun PCL fibers onto a striated substrate with 12 μm wide ridges and grooves and determined their mechanical properties in an aqueous solution with a combined atomic force/inverted optical microscopy technique. Fiber diameters, D, ranged from 27 to 280 nm. The hydrated PCL fibers had an extensibility (breaking strain), εmax, of 137%. The Young’s modulus, E, and tensile strength, , showed a strong dependence on fiber diameter, D; decreasing steeply with increasing diameter, following empirical equations MPa and MPa. Incremental stress-strain measurements were employed to investigate the viscoelastic behavior of these fibers. The fibers exhibited stress relaxation with a fast and slow relaxation time of 3.7 ± 1.2 s and 23 ± 8 s and these experiments also allowed the determination of the elastic and viscous moduli. Cyclic stress-strain curves were used to determine that the elastic limit of the fibers, εelastic, is between 19% and 36%. These curves were also used to determine that these fibers showed small energy losses (< 20%) at small strains (ε < 10%), and over 50% energy loss at large strains (ε > 50%), asymptotically approaching 61%, as . Our work is the first mechanical characterization of hydrated, electrospun PCL nanofibers; all previous experiments were performed on dry PCL fibers, to which we will compare our data.