On Transfemoral Prosthetic Knee Design for Natural Human Knee Motion

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Wen-Tzong Lee ◽  
Kevin Russell ◽  
Raj S. Sodhi

Background: A transfemoral prosthetic knee is an artificial knee used by above-the-knee amputees. There are two major categories of transfemoral prosthetic knee designs: pin joint-based and polycentric designs. While pin joint-based knee designs only allow pure rotation of the knee, polycentric knee designs allow a combination of rotational and translational knee motion which is exhibited in natural knee motion. Objective: This work presents both the recently-patented design process and the resulting design of a polycentric transfemoral prosthetic knee that approximates natural spatial human knee motion during flexion and extension. Methods: The design process includes tibial motion acquisition, Revolute-Revolute-Spherical-Spherical linkage (or RRSS) motion generation, RRSS linkage axode generation and circle fitting. The polycentric transfemoral prosthetic knee design produced from this process includes a gear joint with a specific spatial orientation to approximate natural spatial human knee motion. Results: Using the design process, a polycentric transfemoral prosthetic knee was designed to replicate a group of five tibial positions over 37.5° of knee flexion (the amount of knee flexion in a standard human gait cycle) with a minimal structural error. Conclusion: The circular gear-based knee design accurately replicated natural spatial knee motion over the tibial position data given for a standard human gait cycle. The knee design method must be implemented over a broader sampling of tibial position data to determine if a circular gear-based knee design is consistently accurate.

Author(s):  
Tyagi Ramakrishnan ◽  
Christina-Anne Lahiff ◽  
Asgard Kaleb Marroquin ◽  
Kyle B. Reed

The human knee is a complex and robust system. It is the most important joint for human gait because of its immense load bearing ability. The loss of such an important joint often makes it difficult for a person to ambulate. Because of this and the resulting unnatural application of forces, many trans-femoral amputees develop an asymmetric gait that leads to future complications. Prosthetic knees are required to be well-designed to cope with all variabilities. There have been many prosthetic knee designs, some more complex than others. This paper describes the design and preliminary testing of a novel passive position and weight activated knee locking mechanism for use in lower limb prosthetics. This knee mechanism is designed to be a simple and economical alternative to existing knee mechanisms. The mechanism utilizes the dynamics of the user to lock the knee during stance and unlock during the swing phase. The presence of one moving component and a simple assembly makes this design a good base for customization. Results from testing the knee mechanism shows trends that are different from a normal human knee, which is to be expected. The prosthetic knee is designed to have low friction during swing of the shank and, hence, the flexion and extension angles and angular velocities are larger compared to a normal knee. The kinematics show a cyclic trend that is highly repeatable. Further refinement and testing can make this mechanism more efficient in mimicking a normal knee.


Author(s):  
Timur Smetani ◽  
Elizaveta Gureva ◽  
Vyacheslav Andreev ◽  
Natalya Tarasova ◽  
Nikolai Andree

The article discusses methods for optimizing the design of the Neutron Converter research plant design with parameters that are most suitable for a particular consumer. 38 similar plant structures with different materials and sources were calculated, on the basis of which the most optimal options were found. As part of the interaction between OKBM Afrikantov JSC and the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after R. E. Alekseev, the Neutron Converter research plant was designed and assembled. The universal neutron converter is a device for converting a stream of fast neutrons emitted by isotopic sources into a "standardized" value of flux density with known parameters in the volume of the central part of the product, which is the working part of the universal neutron converter. To supply neutron converters to other customer organizations (universities, research organizations and collective centers), it is necessary to take into account the experience of operating an existing facility, as well as rationalize the design process of each specific instance in accordance with the requirements of the customer.


2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Anatoly S. Bobe ◽  
◽  
Dmitry V. Konyshev ◽  
Sergey A. Vorotnikov ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 3266
Author(s):  
Insub Choi ◽  
Dongwon Kim ◽  
Junhee Kim

Under high gravity loads, steel double-beam floor systems need to be reinforced by beam-end concrete panels to reduce the material quantity since rotational constraints from the concrete panel can decrease the moment demand by inducing a negative moment at the ends of the beams. However, the optimal design process for the material quantity of steel beams requires a time-consuming iterative analysis for the entire floor system while especially keeping in consideration the rotational constraints in composite connections between the concrete panel and steel beams. This study aimed to develop an optimal design method with the LM (Length-Moment) index for the steel double-beam floor system to minimize material quantity without the iterative design process. The LM index is an indicator that can select a minimum cross-section of the steel beams in consideration of the flexural strength by lateral-torsional buckling. To verify the proposed design method, the material quantities between the proposed and code-based design methods were compared at various gravity loads. The proposed design method successfully optimized the material quantity of the steel double-beam floor systems without the iterative analysis by simply choosing the LM index of the steel beams that can minimize objective function while satisfying the safety-related constraint conditions. In particular, under the high gravity loads, the proposed design method was superb at providing a quantity-optimized design option. Thus, the proposed optimal design method can be an alternative for designing the steel double-beam floor system.


Author(s):  
Jan Schumann ◽  
Ulrich Harbecke ◽  
Daniel Sahnen ◽  
Thomas Polklas ◽  
Peter Jeschke ◽  
...  

The subject of the presented paper is the validation of a design method for HP and IP steam turbine stages. Common design processes have been operating with simplified design methods in order to quickly obtain feasible stage designs. Therefore, inaccuracies due to assumptions in the underlying methods have to be accepted. The focus of this work is to quantify the inaccuracy of a simplified design method compared to 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Short computing time is very convenient in preliminary design; therefore, common design methods work with a large degree of simplification. The origin of the presented analysis is a mean line design process, dealing with repeating stage conditions. Two features of the preliminary design are the stage efficiency, based on loss correlations, and the mechanical strength, obtained by using the beam theory. Due to these simplifications, only a few input parameters are necessary to define the primal stage geometry and hence, the optimal design can easily be found. In addition, by using an implemented law to take the radial equilibrium into account, the appropriate twist of the blading can be defined. However, in comparison to the real radial distribution of flow angles, this method implies inaccuracies, especially in regions of secondary flow. In these regions, twisted blades, developed by using the simplified radial equilibrium, will be exposed to a three-dimensional flow, which is not considered in the design process. The analyzed design cases show that discrepancies at the hub and shroud section do exist, but have minor effects. Even the shroud section, with its thinner leading-edge, is not vulnerable to these unanticipated flow angles.


2012 ◽  
Vol 263-266 ◽  
pp. 1853-1857
Author(s):  
Mao Lin Wang ◽  
Ai Jun Xu

In this article, geometric primitive approach is used to realize the design and development of point symbol database for mapping based on C# .NET and ArcGIS Engine. This paper presents the design framework and the design process of point symbol database, and studies design method and attribute management of point symbol, especially the design of point symbol attribute of word type of TrueType, which makes conveniently the point symbol for special map users needed.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (22) ◽  
pp. 7497
Author(s):  
Roy T. Shahar ◽  
Maayan Agmon

Spatio-temporal parameters of human gait, currently measured using different methods, provide valuable information on health. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) are one such method of gait analysis, with smartphone IMUs serving as a good substitute for current gold-standard techniques. Here we investigate the concurrent validity of a smartphone placed in a front-facing pocket to perform gait analysis. Sixty community-dwelling healthy adults equipped with a smartphone and an application for gait analysis completed a 2-min walk on a marked path. Concurrent validity was assessed against an APDM mobility lab (APDM Inc.; Portland, OR, USA). Bland–Altman plots and intraclass correlation coefficients (agreement and consistency) for gait speed, cadence, and step length indicate good to excellent agreement (ICC2,1 > 0.8). For right leg stance and swing % of gait cycle and double support % of gait cycle, results were moderate (0.52 < ICC2,1 < 0.62). For left leg stance and swing % of gait cycle left results show poor agreement (ICC2,1 < 0.5). Consistency of results was good to excellent for all tested parameters (ICC3,1 > 0.8). Thus we have a valid and reliable instrument for measuring healthy adults’ spatio-temporal gait parameters in a controlled walking environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Péter Müller ◽  
Ádám Schiffer

Examining a human movement can provide a wealth of information about a patient’s medical condition. The examination process can be used to diagnose abnormal changes (lesions), ability development and monitor the rehabilitation process of people with reduced mobility. There are several approaches to monitor people, among other things with sensors and various imaging and processing devices. In this case a Kinect V2 sensor and a self-developed LabView based application was used, to examine the movement of the lower limbs. The ideal gait pattern was recorded in the RoboGait training machine and the measured data was used to identify the phases of the human gait. During the evaluation, the position of the skeleton model, the associated body joints and angles can be calculated. The pre-recorded ideal and natural gait cycle can be compared.With the self-developed method the pre-recorded ideal and natural gait cycle can be compared and processed for further evaluation. The evaluated measurement data confirm that a reliable and mobile solution for gait analysis has been created.


Author(s):  
Taesik Jeong ◽  
Thomas P. Kicher ◽  
Ronald J. Zab

Abstract An object-oriented programming (OOP) technique is investigated in order to develop the framework for mechanical design automation systems. A task-oriented decomposition approach is applied to conceptualize the task-object (or task-performing-object) in which common behavior and communication protocols are encapsulated [1]. Each task in the entire design process, either controlling design strategies or performing design methods, is made into an object. The design method objects are implemented using Artificial Intelligence (AI) paradigms, such as artificial neural networks and expert systems. This report explains how OOP is integrated to develop a mechanical design framework (MDF). A single reduction gear box design process was used to identify some of the general tasks involved in mechanical design process. From this process the guidelines for developing task-objects for future systems are formed. Full details of these guidelines and an implementation example in Smalltalk on a PC are available in [7].


Author(s):  
Mehmet Iscan ◽  
Cuneyt Yilmaz ◽  
Berkem Vural ◽  
Huseyin Eken

Abstract The most common human locomotion problems such as quadriceps weakness, knee osteoarthritis can be healed up by using exoskeleton mechanisms with proper control systems. However, these kinds of abnormalities cannot be easily modeled in terms of engineering perspectives due to a lack of adequate data or unknown dynamics. Also, nature always seeks minimum energy as well as biology which means that the unknown dynamics can be built by using this phenomenon. In this study, a new system dynamic model had been involved in designing a simple single-legged exoskeleton robot mechanism and its control system to assist partially disabled individuals to improve their quality of locomotion. To determine the specific features of the human gait disorders to interpret their nature in the computer-aided simulation environment, knee osteoarthritis and quadriceps weakness, which are the common types of such problems, have been chosen as the main interests for this study. By using the lower limb model with anthropometric data, the simulations of disorders have been realized on MATLAB Simscape environment which enables us to model the entire exoskeleton system with the 3D parts of the human body. A model of a leg with the disorder was able to be obtained with the utilization of feedback linearization which is one of the examples of minimum principles in the control theory. A proper gait cycle is achieved with the exoskeleton application and separately for the leg, with approximately 10 deg deviation from the natural property in knee flexion. Finally, it can be seen that the system conversion into such problematic cases with or without an exoskeleton system is accomplished.


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