Study, Development and Application of a Prosthetic Foot for a Transtibial Amputation of Traumatic Etiologic

Abstract

In Portugal, the evolution of the number of amputations up to the present day has increased, with 553 annual transtibial amputations and 958 annual transfemoral amputation. Therefore, based on the limitations of current conventional prosthetic feet and the needs of their users, this dissertation gave rise to an alternative prosthetic foot for the extremity of the lower limb. This prosthetic foot presents an alternative as it uses low-cost mechanisms and materials. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop a prosthetic foot for a population with physical limitations. Initially, a model was designed in Solidworks software and later made 3 simulations in Ansys 2021 software in which each simulation was made with a different material: Onyx; Onyx + Carbon Fibers, and finally, Aluminium. In the simulations, a weight on the foot of a person weighing 90 kg was simulated and the deformations caused, the equivalent stress and the cutting stress were studied in order to determine which design is most suitable for the manufacture of the prosthetic foot. However, the estimated deformations in all studies do not take into account the distribution of the load by filling the printed part. Therefore, deformations in actual tests should be considerably lower.