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Facilities
The J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic
Research Laboratory is an organized research activity of the School of
Veterinary Medicine at the University of California at Davis. The
laboratory consists of a mechanical testing facility (709 sq ft), undecalcified
tissue processing area (500 sq ft), microradiography area (99 sq ft), photography
area (156 sq. ft.), microscopy area (153 sq ft), computer area (370 sq
ft), and graduate student and faculty office space (434 sq ft) in Haring
Hall.
The mechanical testing facility
houses a Materials Testing System Model 809 biaxial servohydraulic mechanical
testing system capable of generating 55,000 lb axial load and 25,000 in-lb
torsional load. It has a dual servovalve system and a range of lower
load cells to also accommodate small specimens. Ancillary equipment
includes strain gauge signal conditioning equipment, linear variable displacement
transducers, linear potentiometers, and extensometers. This area
also houses a PC computer with LabView software and an SCXI signal conditioning
system for control and data acquisition on custom made loading systems.
The tissue processing area houses
equipment for the plastic embeddment and processing of mineralized (and
unmineralized) tissues for microscopic examination. This equipment
includes a Leitz 1600 circular bone saw, a Buehler Isomet low speed bone
saw, a Buehler Ecomet 2 grinder/polisher, a Maruto laper, a Polycut E microtome/ultramiller,
and an Exakt 3100 CP System. The Exakt Cutting/Grinding System is
an integrated system for sectioning undecalcified tissues and metallic
implants that consists of a precision band saw, embedding tools, a microgrinding
device, and accessories for specimen handling.
The microradiography area houses
2 cabinet x-ray units (Faxitron) for the radiography of gross specimens
and quantitative microradiography of thin sections using mammography film
and glass plates coated with emulsion.
The microscopy area houses an Olympus
Vanox II Research Photomicroscope with transmitted light, epifluorescent,
phase contrast, polarized light, and Nomarsky capabilities. It has
two 35 mm cameras, a large format camera, and Dage video camera for image
capture. Video images are captured on either a MacIntosh based system
for morphometry using NIH image or a PC based system for quantitative microradiography
using custom software.
The photography area houses a photostand
and Nikon N8008S AF and Nikon Coolpix digital cameras for documentation
of findings.
The computer area houses 3 PC computers
running Windows 95 or Windows NT and 2 Unix based workstations (Sun SparcStation
20 and SGI Iris Indigo 2). The PC computers are loaded with word
processing (Word, WordPerfect), spreadsheet (Excel), presentation (Powerpoint),
database (Access), statistical (BMDP, SAS), image manipulation (Photoshop),
image analysis (Image), and internet (Netscape, Eudora) software.
The Unix workstations are used for image manipulation (Analyze) and modeling
(Abaqus, SIMM) programs. |
