A Comparative Evaluation of Coefficient of Friction and Mechanical Properties of Commercially Available Foley Catheters

Abstract

Three commercially available urinary catheters were evaluated for their coefficient of friction and mechanical properties, which are two important parameters as far as the intended use is considered. The apparent coefficient of friction was measured from the slope of the force versus normal load graph using an in-house fabricated setup. Themechanical properties like ultimate tensile strength, elongation at break and modulus were evaluated before and after aging in synthetic urine. The swelling behavior of the catheter samples was studied in toluene and found to correlate well with the mechanical properties.

Keywords

Foley catheters coefficient of friction tensile strength modulus

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