Biomechanical analysis of the interaction phe-nomena between the cuff of an artificial urinary sphincter and urethral duct

The present work pertains to the mechanics of ure-thral duct, in consideration of the adoption of artificial urinary sphincteric (AUS) devices to overcome incontinence problems. The interaction phenomena occurring between artificial sphinc-teric cuff and urethral duct represent a fundamental problem in the investigation of reliability and durability of devices. Experi-mental activity is performed on urethral tissues and also struc-tural test are carried out on the overall urethral duct, to provide parameters definition within the constitutive formulation devel-oped. The mechanical behaviour of the cuff of AUS is investigated using mechanical and physicochemical procedures, leading to the formulation of a model to be adopted for definition of the struc-tural response by means of numerical approach. The cuff confor-mation is relieved by tomographic technique and experimental and numerical data of inflation process are compared. The results obtained are adopted for the definition of the model of the cuff. Numerical analyses were developed to evaluate the interaction between the cuff itself and the urethral duct, with reference to the lumen occlusion process for maintaining urinary continence.