Development of finite element analysis for customized wrist brace

  • 陳 靖翔

Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

In this study the static and dynamic analyses were conducted for 3D printed customized wrist brace (or wrist orthosis) by finite element method (FEM) The brace is designed to fit the profile of a patient’s wrist which can be recorded by an optical 3D scanner The material used for the brace was PLA Based on the tensile testing data the Young’s modulus of PLA was determined experimentally to be about 1 GPa The finite element simulation of this study is divided into three parts In the first part the static analysis was conducted to obtain responses of the wrist brace under the various types of actions of the wrist The simulation results showed that among various geometric design factors the thickness of the brace is the most significant one that affects the strength of the brace It is recommended the thickness should be greater than 2 mm in order to ensure the strength of the brace In the second part the dynamic analysis was conducted to simulate the brace impacted by a steel ball with a diameter of 4 cm and a mass of 0 3768 kg The impact velocity is 5 m/s It was concluded that the impact location is a key parameter that influences the plastic deformation after the impact In the final part the contact pressure between wrist and brace was simulated by the FEM In the brace design a gap exists between the brace and the wrist skin Small gap can result in uncomfortable wearing and large contact pressure that the skin ulceration could occur In contrast the fixity of the brace reduces if large gap is used The FEM simulations reveal that a gap less than 0 2 mm is unacceptable because contact pressure is higher than the threshold in some locations The present study gives a guideline to design a brace with enough strength comfortability and fixity
Date of Award2019
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorChung-De Chen (Supervisor)

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