Core Facilities and Platforms

Orthopaedics Biomechanics Core Facility

On this page:

Overview

Located at the Civic Campus of The Ottawa Hospital, we provide state-of-the-art equipment for destructive and non-destructive mechanical testing of native biological tissues, bioengineered materials, classical engineering materials, medical devices and implants. 

We also offer biomedical engineering expertise and facilities to develop in-vitro testing models, cadaveric and model organism experiments and simulations.

Services

  • Evaluation of material or component tensile and compressive strength, toughness, fatigue limit, creep etc.

  • Failure, corrosion, wear simulation and analysis.

  • Cadaver study design and testing.

  • Model organism study design, experimental surgery and testing.

  • Experimental protocol development and grant/budget preparation.

  • CAD design of fixtures, instrumentation and tooling.

  • Access to state-of-the-art machining and 3D printing services.

  • CT/MRI segmentation and reconstruction.

  • Touchless 3D surface scanning and reconstruction.

Equipment

  • MTS Sintech 1/G Electric Load Frame.

  • MTS 858 Mini-Bionix Cyclic Load Frame.

  • Various strain gauges and extensometers.

  • Various thin film sensors are utilized to measure total and peak force, pressure, and contact area.

  • Examples of applications.

Tracking system for precise measurement of position in three dimensional space.

  • Touchless non-invasive 3D scanner.

MTS 858 Mini-Bionix

Servo-hydraulic test frame

  • Tension/compression and torsional loads

  • Cyclic testing

  • Load range: 50N-8000N

  • Displacement: 0.1mm-100mm

  • Rotation: 0.1°-90°

Applications

  • Bones, fracture plates

  • Implant testing

  • Failure, fatigue and wear testing

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MTS Sintech 1/G

Servo-electric load frame

  • Tension/compression

  • Low loads: 0.01N – 1000N

  • Displacement: 0.00mm-300mm

Applications

  • Cartilage, tendon, skin

  • Surface coatings

  • Bioengineered materials

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Fee structure

Internal users (OHRI, TOH and UofO)

  • Mechanical testing: $40/hour

  • Experiment/engineering consultation: $75/hour

External users (industry and general public)

  • Mechanical testing: $80/hour

  • Experiment/engineering consultation: $100/hour

Contact us

Braden Gammon MD

Laboratory Director
Orthopaedic Surgery
The Ottawa Hospital/OHRI

bgammon@toh.ca