FIGURE 2.

The wound configurations that were studied in this work (with respect to the direction of the gravity vector): (A) prone, (B) supine, and (C) Sims' positions where the wound is facing upward, downward, and sideway, respectively. Although the exudate needs to be transported into the dressing through capillary motion in the prone configuration (A), as opposed to being pushed by gravity for the supine position (B), in both of these cases, the effective area of the dressing for potential contact with the exudate is the entire wound pad. Contrarily, for a side‐lying (Sims') position, gravity transfers the exudate towards the lower portion of the pad, and hence, not all the wound pad area can be used for absorption of the wound fluids (C). Accordingly, whether the transport mechanism is capillary action (A) or the self‐weight of the exudate (B) may affect the fluid flow rate into the dressing, but not the effective area of the wound pad for fluid handling, which is identical for the prone or supine test configurations (D). For the side‐lying position, however, only a portion of the wound pad is effectively in contact with the exudate due to gravity concentrating the fluid at the lower region of the wound (E). We, therefore, consider the latter test configuration to present the greatest challenge to the dressings under investigation