Aspects Related to the Design and Manufacturing of an Original and Innovative Marker Support System for Use in Clinical Optometry

Abstract

The compliant mechanism studied in this paper is used in the structure of an assembly necessary for the temporary mounting of visual markers on glasses frames. Proper correction of vision defects in patients is a field of study in healthcare that has grown in complexity, along with all aspects of technology, over the past decades. As such, along with better lenses and frames, including custom solutions, the devices used to determine the patient’s specific parameters need to be more complex and precise. However, this is only part of the problem: while many devices exist that take measurements such as interpupillary distance with great precision, these come at a very high cost and do not take into account aspects related to real-life usage of the lenses, such as the patient’s position, angle, etc. Given the considerations above, this paper approaches the design, simulation, realization and testing of a working model of a frame used to support markers used in the optometry process. The design proposed in this paper assumes that the system used can be used while the glasses are mounted on the patient’s face, without influencing in any way their position in front of the patient’s eyes. Furthermore, the system must allow assembly and disassembly with minimal effort, to allow the patient to perform some movements without changing the position of the frame, as well as the easy access to the markers mounted on the spectacle frame. The main scope of the paper is to design and choose the correct constructive solution of a compliant mechanism for this important clinical optometric application in terms of geometric parameters, material and technology used to obtain appropriate performances. The authors highlight how the parameters and manufacturing technology for the device were chosen, and a finite element analysis is used to simulate the mechanical behaviour of the mechanism and to choose the optimal variant in terms of the desired displacement between three proposed materials for the given application. After justifying the choice of the constructive solution, several physical models of optometric support markers were realised using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), and Polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) or polylactic acid as materials. Furthermore, an electro-pneumatic experimental test stand was developed to simulate and test the functionality of the device and to validate the proposed model.