Fulufhelo Nemavhola

Durban University of Technology | dut · Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment

The discovery of the utility of various titanium alloys as implant biomaterials has resulted in these materials becoming far more popular than other metals in the medical world. However, the production of these materials using additive manufacturing has its own challenges some of those being the surface finish that can be used as an implantology ma...

Individual human hair fibers exhibiting a curly morphology were procured from a female donor within her early thirties (30s). The selected hair fibers donor had refrained from undergoing any form of chemical treatment, including dyeing, relaxing, and bleaching, for a minimum period of six (6) months prior to specimen collection. The isolated single...

PVA (polyvinyl alcohol)-ZrP (PVA/ZrP) and Nafion®/PVA-ZrP nanocomposite membranes were synthesised using the recasting method with glutaraldehyde (GA) as a crosslinking agent. The resulting nanocomposite membranes were characterised using a variety of techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier tra...

The teaching approaches of mechanical engineering design mainly focus on both problem-based learning and project-based learning, where students are equipped with fundamental knowledge to beef up both their skills intellectual skills and professional skills to handle complex interdisciplinary and real-world problems. In most institutions of the worl...

The purpose of this study is to identify the steps involved in fabricating silica/chitosan composite membranes and their suitability for fuel cell applications. It also intends to identify the physical characteristics of chitosan composite membranes, including their degree of water absorption, proton conductivity, methanol permeability, and functio...

This study focuses on the effect of strain-rate on curly single fiber under dry condition at room temperature.

The study has assessed the effect of optimizing methods on the accuracy of the constitutive model.

The purpose of this study is to identify the steps involved in fabricating silica/chitosan composite membranes and their suitability in fuel cell application. It also intends to identify the physical characteristics of chitosan composite membranes, including their degree of water absorption, proton conductivity, methanol permeability, and functiona...

Tendons transmit forces from muscles to bones through joints. Typically, tendons and muscles work together to innovate a motion. In addition, tendons are often subjected to much higher stresses than the muscles that they serve in any given action. As a result, tendons are susceptible to injuries that may lead to a permanent dysfunction in joint mob...

There remains a challenge with continued research on how to achieve functionality to mimic the biomechanical environment, induce bioactivity, and support critical size tissue reintegration. Furthermore, the persistent use of animals for regenerative medicine or drug discovery is ethically challenging. This dictates/highlights the need for further d...

Fatigue analysis plays a vital role in determining the structural integrity and life of a dental implant. With the use of such implants on the rise, there is a corresponding increase in the number of implant failures. As such, the aim of this research paper is to investigate the life of 3D-printed dental implants. The dental implants considered in...

Heart failure remains one of the leading causes of death especially among people over the age of 60 years worldwide. To develop effective therapy and suitable replacement materials for the heart muscle it is necessary to understand its biomechanical behaviour under load. This paper investigates the passive mechanical response of the sheep myocardia...

High quality computational model of soft tissues is a function of accurate and reliable mechanical properties. Hyperelastic constitutive models are normally utilised in developing reliable computational models. Therefore, section of proper and reliable constitutive models for soft tissue is critical. This work presents the biomechanical properties...

Corrosion in the human body can cause materials to change structurally and release undesirable products that may bring about complications such as toxicity and inflammation. These may jeopardize the mechanical stability of prostheses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of solutions (Ringer’s and table salt [NaCl]) and immersion pe...

Heart myocardia are critical to the facilitation of heart pumping and blood circulating around the body. The biaxial mechanical testing of the left ventricle (LV) has been extensively utilised to build the computational model of the whole heart with little importance given to the unique mechanical properties of the right ventricle (RV) and cardiac...

This study assesses the modelling capabilities of four constitutive hyperelastic material models to fit the experimental data of the porcine sclera soft tissue. It further estimates the material parameters and discusses their applicability to a finite element model by examining the statistical dispersion measured through the standard deviation. Fif...

To investigate the effect of acidic nanoparticles on proton conductivity, permeability, and fuel-cell performance, a commercial Nafion® 117 membrane was impregnated with zirconium phosphates (ZrP) and sulfated zirconium (S-ZrO2) nanoparticles. As they are more stable than other solid superacids, sulfated metal oxides have been the subject of intens...

Alloy nanoparticles are one of the best multicomponent metallic particles in the range of 1–100 nm as a diameter. It has a very complex structure and very particular properties which exactly is related to their size, composition, and chemical formulation. It will have tailored and multifunctional applications from industry to medicine such as data...

Regional mechanics of the heart is vital in the development of accurate computational models for the pursuit of relevant therapies. Challenges related to heart dysfunctioning are the most important sources of mortality in the world. For example, myocardial infarction (MI) is the foremost killer in sub-Saharan African countries. Mechanical character...

The initial stability after implantology is paramount to the survival of the dental implant, and the surface roughness of the implant plays a vital role in this regard. The characterisation of surface topography is a complicated branch of metrology, with a huge range of parameters available. Each parameter contributes significantly towards the surv...

This study assesses the modelling capabilities of four constitutive hyperplastic material models to fit the experimental data of the porcine sclera soft tissue. It further estimates the material parameters and discusses their applicability to a finite element model by examining the statistical dispersion measured through the standard deviation. Fif...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanical behaviour of the tracheal tissue under biaxial tensile loading. Furthermore, the study examines the material properties of the tissue through a study of the model parameters for six constitutive models. Materials and methods The fourteen (n = 13) trachea sheep (Vleis Merino) pieces...

The modelling of tendon behaviour during failure stages is nonlinear and heavily random. However, the understanding of its behavior during such stages, and development of models that can give an accurate prediction of its behavior during failure can provide a means for developing effective tendon therapies. This study is aimed at demonstrating the...

Background: Availability of biaxial mechanical data for heart myocardia remains high in demand for the development of accurate and detailed computational models. Lack of accurate mechanical data for myocardia may delay the understanding of heart diseases mechanisms. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop understanding of the regional differ...

Heart failure remains one of the leading causes of death especially among people over the age of 60 years worldwide. To develop effective therapy and suitable replacement materials for the heart muscle it is necessary to understand its biomechanical behaviour under load. This paper investigates the passive mechanical response of the sheep myocardia...

The function of the omasum is incompletely understood; however, the omasum plays an important role in the transport of appropriately sized feed particles from the reticulorumen to the abomasum, oesophageal groove closure, fermentation of ingesta, and absorption of water, volatile fatty acids, and minerals. The aim of this study is to evaluate the s...

Availability of biaxial mechanical data for heart myocardia remains high in demand for the development of accurate and detailed computational models. The aim of this study is to study the regional difference of wall mechanics using rat heart in the left ventricle (LV), septal wall (STW) and right ventricle (RV). This was achieved by conducting a bi...

Heart myocardia are critical to the facilitation of heart pumping and blood circulating around the body. The biaxial mechanical testing of the Left Ventricle (RV) is utilised to build the computa-tional model of the whole heart with little importance given to the unique mechanical properties of Right Ventricle (RV) and Mid-wall (MDW). Most of those...

To investigate the effect of acidic nanoparticles on proton conductivity, permeability and fuel cell performance, a commercial Nafion® 117 membrane was impregnated with zirconium phosphates (ZrP) and sulfated zirconium (S-ZrO2) nanoparticles. The tensile test, water uptake, methanol crossover, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray d...

This paper presents the investigation of biomechanical behaviour of sheep heart fibre using uniaxial tests in various samples. Non-linear Finite Element models (FEA) that are utilised in understanding mechanisms of different diseases may not be developed without the accurate material properties. This paper presents uniaxial mechanical testing data...

The initial stability after implantology is paramount to the survival of the dental implant and the surface roughness of the implant plays a vital role in this regard. The characterisation of surface topography is a complicated branch of metrology, with a huge range of parameters available. Each parameter contributes significantly towards the survi...

A better understanding of diseases progress in tissues vest on the accurate understanding of tissues under mechanical loading. Also, development of therapies for injuries may depend on the available mechanical data for soft tissues. In this study, the raw data of biaxial tensile testing of sclera soft tissue is presented in this paper. Biaxial mech...

Fatigue analysis plays a vital role in determining the structural integrity and life of a dental implant. With the use of such implants on the rise, there is a corresponding increase in the number of implant failures. As such, the aim of this research paper is to investigate the life of 3D-printed dental implants. The dental implants considered in...

Tendons transmit forces from muscles to bones through joints. Typically, tendons and muscles work together to innovate a particular type of motion. Therefore, in order for the tendons to find attachment to the bones, they are naturally adapted as much thinner strands than the muscles that they serve. Thus, they are often subjected to much higher st...

This article presents raw data of biaxial tensile measurements of rat heart passive myocardium conducted in lab scale environment. The passive myocardium of the rat was divided into three regions, namely: left ventricle, mid-wall and right ventricle. The biaxial dataset of passive rat myocardia is presented as stress vs strain of the passive rat my...

Regional mechanics of the heart is vital in the development of accurate computational models for the pursuit of relevant therapies. Challenges related to heart dysfunctioning are the most important sources of mortality in the world. For example, myocardial infarction (MI) is the foremost killer in sub-Saharan African countries. Mechanical character...

Constant exposure to the environment, head trauma and shaking of ocular tissues result in damage and disorders of the eye. In the United States, trauma alone causes about 30 000 people each year to lose vision in one eye. The sclera soft tissue plays a vital role in protecting, maintaining the shape of the eye and regulating the intraocular pressur...

This paper aimed to study the influence of zirconium phosphate (ZrP) nanoparticles on reducing the diameter of nanofibres during electrospinning. Addition of metal oxide such as zirconium phosphate decreases the diameter and smooths on the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibres as observed by the SEM techniques. Furthermore, this work investigated the...

Stable and high surface area zirconium oxide nanoparticles have been synthesised by means of the hydrothermal method. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller results show that a high surface area of 543 m²/g was obtained in the hydrothermal process, having a high porosity in nanometre range. The hydrothermal method was applied at 120 °C by using an autoclave wi...

Zirconium phosphates (ZrP) were incorporated into Nafion® 117 membrane by impregnating method to obtain a reduced methanol permeation and improved proton conductivity for fuel cell application. The mechanical properties and water uptake of Nafion® membrane incorporated with zirconium phosphates nanoparticles was more improvement when compared to th...

This paper presents constitutive laws suitable for the prediction of mechanical behaviour of nano-composite membrane compared with the commercial membrane Nafion®117. The uniaxial tensile data of commercial Nafion®117 and Nafion®/ Zr-150 nano-composite membrane utilised for fitting hyperelastic models was determined experimentally. Several material...

Membranes are widely used daily, such as for filtration in reverse osmosis, or in the form of electrolyte membrane fuel cells. Modified Nafion® membranes were synthesised by impregnation and their mechanical properties were observed. The effect of the incorporation of a ZrO2-CNT nano-filler within Nafion® membrane on the thermal stability and cryst...

Purpose: Computational modelling may improve the fundamental understanding of various mechanisms of diseases more particularly related to clinical challenges. In this study the effect of remodeling infarct presence in the left ventricle on the interventricular septal wall is studied using the finite element methods. Methods: In this study, two r...

The relationship between infarct mechanics and ventricular function of the septal wall in the presence of fibrotic infarct in the free wall remains poorly understood. This study compares the mechanics of the septal wall in the healthy and fibrotic infarcted rat heart models during active ejection. To simulate active contraction, three dimensional c...

The mechanical stability of modified membranes has become a priority for fuel cell applications as the membranes must endure all the fuel cell operations (to prevent crossover of the fuel while still conducting). Their mechanical stress and yielding stress in the recast and impregnation methods compared with the commercial nafion® membrane were obs...

Global transformation in higher education over the past two decades has led to the implementation of national policies in order to measure the performance of institutions in South Africa. The Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) adopted the quality assurance (QA) model for the purposes of accountability and governance in South African Higher Edu...

This paper presents the results of mechanical strength of wet and dry zirconia/ Nafion® nano-composite membrane. The tensile tests were conducted to determine elastic modulus and stiffness of dry and wet pristine Nafion® membrane and modified Nafion® membrane. The composite membranes were prepared by recast method of different synthesized zirconium...

The aim of this paper is to observe the effect of zirconia nanofiller on methanol crossover, mechanical strength and conductivity of modified Nafion® membranes. The impregnation of zirconia nano-rods within the Nafion® matrix obtained the improvements on modulus of elastic in both the dry and wet state, with a decrease in the water contact angle, o...

When air passes through the wind turbine, the airflow is purely non-homogenous, unsteady and turbulent. The wind speed is critical in the design of wind turbine blades and its support structures. The function of the inner core is to support the rotor blade to prevent unwarranted deflection and to lower the vibration of the rotor blade. The inner co...

The effect of myocardial infarction on the global functioning of the heart is well known. Less is understood regarding the effect of LV fibrotic infarction on the cardiac mechanics of the septal wall. To determine this unknown, the stress and strain of septal wall on the healthy and infarcted rat heart model is measured by using finite element mode...

Synthesised water-retaining mesoporous zirconia nanoparticles were used to modify Nafion® membrane. This experiment was conducted to enhance the mechanical strength and hydrophilicity of Nafion® membrane for high temperature fuel cell applications. Recast methods were used to prepare a nanocomposite membrane with 10wt% of zirconia nanoparticles. Th...

Considering accurate constitutive models is of the utmost importance when capturing the mechanical response of soft tissue and biomedical materials under physiological loading conditions. This paper investigated the behaviour of porcine myocardium in passive rested hearts. This was done by applying biaxial loads on the myocardium. The main objectiv...

This research focuses on a comparison of female and male student performance in a mechanical engineering module offered through distance learning at the University of South Africa. Mechanical engineering design is a critical module for all aspiring engineering graduates to be produced by the university. In the South African context, it has been pro...

Generally, there is a conception that there are fewer research activities at institutions at which engineering is taught through distance learning. The aim of this article is to discuss how research activities are conducted in the school of engineering at a South African university offering engineering programmes in an open distance learning model....

Engineers play an important role not only in conceptualising, designing and manufacturing new products, processes and systems, but also in the maintenance and improvement of the same to ensure that everyday operations run smoothly. In this respect, research in engineering is expected to remain vibrant, whilst being relevant to address the myriad re...

The paper exhibits the examination of life quality evaluation of helical coil springs in the railway industry as it impacts the safety of the transportation of goods and people. The types of spring considered are: the external spring, internal spring and stabiliser spring. Statistical process control was utilised as the fundamental instrument in th...

An investigation was undertaken on the teaching and learning of the quality assurance course to determine what could be done to improve the situation during the years 2012 to 2015. The course was taught using open distance learning (ODL) methods during 2012 to 2014. Developing teaching and learning materials using technology requires different mode...

Background: The recognition of RV overpressure is critical to human life, as this may signify morbidity and mortality. Right ventricle (RV) dysfunction is understood to have an impact on the performance of the left ventricle (LV), but the mechanisms remain poorly understood. It is understood that ventricular compliance has the ability to affect ca...

Re-engineering technological strategies in teaching and learning in an open distance learning (ODL) environment is paramount as the demand for access to quality higher education escalates drastically on a year to year basis. The organisational framework requires change in order to accommodate the increasing number of students. In view of the changi...

The Mechanical Testing Facility, which is a division within TT Pty (Ltd), provides component mechanical testing to other divisions tasked with implementing new components in the railway system. The records over seven years show a steady increase in the number of tests delivered late to clients. In this paper, the background to the facility is provi...

The physiological basis of the right ventricle diastolic function is not well studied. In most heart failure, heart transplantation remains the first choice with survival ranges between 40% and 50%. It is known that heart transplantation lacks donors and therefore, there is a need to search for new surgical techniques for heart failure prevention....

Cardiovascular diseases account for one third of all deaths worldwide, more than 33% of which are related to ischemic heart disease, involving a myocardial infarction (MI). Following myocardial infarction, the injured region and ventricle undergo structural changes which are thought to be caused by elevated stresses and reduction of strains in the...

In this paper we present a detailed 3D geometrical reconstruction of a polyethylene glycol (PEG) gel injectate in the infarct region of a rat heart from microscopic histological sections and combination of this injectate geometry with a biventricular rat heart model reconstructed from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data.