The Manufacture of Resorbable Suture Material from Magnesium – Drawing and Stranding of Thin Wires

Abstract

Abstract With the aid of multiple wire drawing passes, the magnesium alloys ZEK100, MgCa0.8, and AL36 were reduced to monofilament wires possessing diameters between 0.5 and 0.1 mm. These filaments were subsequently twisted into poly‐filament suture material using stranding. In order to analyze the microstructural constituents and the mechanical‐tribological properties, metallographic specimens were prepared and tensile tests were performed on both monofilament as well as poly‐filament wire strands. Appropriate parameters were ascertained for the wire drawing process with regard to forming rate, temperature, and heat treatment. During the investigations, the alloy ZEK100 exhibited particularly interesting mechanical properties which, owing to its high tensile strengths (up to 550 MPa for monofilament) and fracture strains (up to 30% for poly‐filament), are comparable to those of conventional polymer‐based suture materials. In addition to this, integrating a core (internal, individual wire) into the poly‐filament mesh of wire strands represents an interesting alternative for future research in which structures composed of different materials, and the advantages of combining their properties are brought into particular focus.