Design of a new type of bar mechanism to improve prosthetic walking in the frontal plane.

Hal, E. van (Esar) (2009) Design of a new type of bar mechanism to improve prosthetic walking in the frontal plane. thesis, Human Movement Sciences.

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Abstract

In current prosthetic leg designs, the part of a prosthetic leg between the prosthetic foot and the stump or artificial knee is a rigid stick. Because of this, prosthetic walkers cannot change the direction of the ground reaction force in the frontal plane on the prosthetic leg during walking. In this paper, it is proposed to replace the rigid stick by a bar mechanism that is placed between the foot and stump or artificial knee. The top part of the mechanism is attached to the prosthetic socket or artificial knee and can move sideways in the frontal plane. The bottom part is attached to the foot and cannot move when the prosthetic foot is placed on the floor. It was determined through simulations how a bar mechanism, independent of type, shape and form would be capable of generating more horizontal ground reaction forces than current designs. To this purpose, a new simulation method called the polode simulation was used. This method inverts the design process, so that a trajectory of the instantaneous centre of rotation (centrode) can be determined before a mechanism is chosen. The polode simulation method makes use of an efficient search engine to find the optimal centrode location and travel. After this, a mechanism based on the Peaucellier mechanism was designed and tested by means of simulation. Simulation outcome revealed that this mechanism enables prosthetic walkers to produce more horizontal ground reaction forces compared to current designs. The adapted Peaucellier mechanism as designed is likely to improve lateral balance in prosthetic walking.

Item Type:	Thesis (Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Otten, E.
Faculty:	Medical Sciences
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2020 10:40
Last Modified:	25 Jun 2020 10:40
URI:	https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/143

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