Nonlocal strain gradient beam model for postbuckling and associated vibrational response of lipid supramolecular protein micro/nano-tubules

Fabrication of Lipid Nanotubules by Ultrasonic Drag Force

This work reports a new method of fabricating lipid nanotubules using ultrasonic Stokes drag force in theory and experiment. Ultrasonic Stokes drag force generated using a planar piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer in a remotely controllable way is introduced. When ultrasonic Stokes drag force is applied on lipid vesicles, the lipid nanotubules attached can be dragged out from the lipid film. In order to demonstrate the formation mechanism of the lipid nanotubules produced by ultrasonic drag force clearly, a theoretical kinetic model is developed. In the experiments, the lipid nanotubules can be rapidly and efficiently fabricated using this ultrasonic transducer both in deionized water and NaCl solutions with different concentrations. The stretching speed of the lipid nanotubules can reach 33 μm/s, approximately 10 times faster than that of the existing methods. The formed lipid nanotubules have a diameter of 600 ± 100 nm (>80%). The length can reach the millimeter level. This work provided a remotely controllable, highly efficient, high-velocity, and solution environment-independent approach for fabricating lipid nanotubules.

Size-dependent thermo-mechanical vibration of lipid supramolecular nano-tubules via nonlocal strain gradient Timoshenko beam theory

Nowadays, nanostructured lipid carriers are used as carrier systems to control the release of drug molecules and promote their physicochemical stability. A better understanding of the dynamic behavior of lipid nano-tubules can facilitate a better drug delivery and other relevant applications. The dynamic behaviors of these lipid nano-tubules are susceptible to temperature variations. Hence, a deeper insight into these effects, as mentioned above, is necessary to ensure higher analysis efficiency. However, the models used in previous researches did not take into account these effects. The lipid nano-tubules often possess a small length-to-width ratio and as a result, the use of the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory for modeling them will significantly reduce the accuracy of calculations, in which Timoshenko beam model is used to increase the accuracy of the model. The main objective of the current study is to investigate the bending vibrations of lipid nano-tubules by considering the temperature effects based on nonlocal strain gradient theory. To this end, based on Hamilton's principle, the governing equations of a dynamical system were extracted by taking into account the temperature effects. The equations were solved using the Navier solution method. Moreover, the dimensionless natural frequency and critical temperature of the lipid nano-tubules were calculated. Our findings demonstrate that the critical temperature is a function of the nonlocal parameter and length-scale parameter variations. It is also observed that at a certain interval of the length scale parameter, increasing the value of the nonlocal parameter results in intensification of the hardening behavior of lipid nano-tubules. Based on our findings, the proposed model indicates good accuracy and prediction.

Advances in modelling and analysis of nano structures: a review

Nanostructures are widely used in nano and micro-sized systems and devices such as biosensors, nano actuators, nano-probes, and nano-electro-mechanical systems. The complete understanding of the mechanical behavior of nanostructures is crucial for the design of nanodevices and systems. Therefore, the flexural, stability and vibration analysis of various nanostructures such as nanowires, nanotubes, nanobeams, nanoplates, graphene sheets and nanoshells has received a great attention in recent years. The focus has been made, to present the structural analysis of nanostructures under thermo-magneto-electro-mechanical loadings under various boundary and environmental conditions. This paper also provides an overview of analytical modeling methods, fabrication procedures, key challenges and future scopes of development in the direction of analysis of such structures, which will be helpful for appropriate design and analysis of nanodevices for the application in the various fields of nanotechnology.

Influence of MgO nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of coated hydroxyapatite nanocomposite scaffolds produced via space holder technique: Fabrication, characterization and simulation

In the current study, hydroxyapatite (HA)-MgO scaffolds are fabricated with the aid of the space holder technique using NaCl as the spacer type. After that, the fabricated samples are deposited in gelatin (GN) with ibuprofen (IBO) substitution to create GN-IBO thin surface coating. The samples are then synthesized chemically and the associated properties are studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scan electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with the energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The compressive strength, fracture toughness, hardness, porosity, bioactivity, degradation rate, wettability, and roughness of the manufactured HA-MgO bio-nanocomposite scaffolds containing different weight fractions of MgO nanoparticles are predicted. Accordingly, nonlinear mechanical behaviors including nonlinear free vibration and nonlinear vibrations associated with the prebuckling and postbuckling domains of an axially loaded plate-type bone implant made of the HA-MgO bio-nanocomposites coated with the GN-IBO thin layers are investigated analytically via a sandwich plate model. The obtained results reveal that magnesium has no considerable effect on the porosity, however it causes to enhance the compressive strength significantly. The presence of magnesium ions also leads to reduce the crystallinity of HA about 30-100 nm due to entering MgO nanoparticles into the network. The results related to the sample with 10 wt% MgO nanoparticles indicate that the microscopic structure of the fabricated bio-nanocomposite scaffold is three-dimensional with porous architecture. Also, it is shown that the solubility of the HA composed with MgO nanoparticles decreases with higher bioactivity.

Mechanical and biological performance of axially loaded novel bio-nanocomposite sandwich plate-type implant coated by biological polymer thin film

Post-surgical infection is one of the essential problems in bone scaffolds that is usually treated with antibiotics. This issue may be related to the poor blood supply for bone tissue due to high concentrations of drug. In the current study, the effect of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles on the antibacterial behavior of the nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite (n-HA) scaffolds coated by gelatin-ibuprofen (GN-IBO) is evaluated. To this end, the bio-nanocomposite scaffolds are fabricated via the space holder technique and then characterized with the aid of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The compressive strength, fracture toughness, porosity, elastic modulus as the mechanical properties, and the apatite formation, biodegradation, drug release and wettability beside the roughness as the biological properties are predicted. The obtained experimental results indicate that the bio-nanocomposite scaffolds containing 10 wt% ZnO has suitable mechanical and biological properties. After that, an analytical model is developed to predict the nonlinear instability and vibration responses of an axially loaded sandwich plate-type implants made of the fabricated n-HA-ZnO bio-nanocomposites coated by GN-IBO thin film corresponding to various weight fractions of ZnO nanoparticles. It is found that ZnO peaks in the positions of 2θ are equal to 31.6°, 33.6°, 34°, 46.4°, and 62°, which represent the crystalline characteristics. Also, it is revealed that through addition of ZnO nanoparticles, the hardness and elastic modulus as well as the bone formation and biodegradation rate of the bio-nanocomposite scaffold enhance, while its drug release in the phosphate buffer solution detected with UV spectrum reduces. It is found that by increasing the ZnO weight fraction, the critical axial buckling load of the sandwich bio-nanocomposite implant enhances, and it buckles at lower axial shortening. However, it is seen that for higher value of wt% ZnO, its influence on the critical buckling load decreases.