Design of a Multi-axis Prosthetic foot for the amputees in the developing world based on human's foot bones structure for Sudanese environment

Abstract

In Sudan alone, there are more than half a million amputees. Preventing these individuals from employment and independent living, also the lack of artificial organs in Africa minimizes their chances of having a normal life. There is a huge gap between the high-performance prosthetic feet in the European Union and the United States that come at a cost of thousands of dollars and the affordable prosthetic in the developing countries, which have poor quality, durability, and performance. The purpose of this project is to design and manufacture a high-performance multi-axis prosthetic foot for the developing world amputees that complies with international standards at an affordable cost. Because of the human foot flexibility, Springy, and Strength that come from its bony structure, we based our design on it. The foot was designed with 4 arches in 2 parts. These arches are capable enough of withstanding the body weight and flexible enough to absorb shocks. It is a specially-formulated reinforced fiberglass material that is nearly indestructible, extremely flexible and available with a low-cost formulation. The finite element analysis (FEA) method was used to report the response of the designed parts due to loads that were set. SOLIDWORKS static simulation was used with a set of four definite loads (250 N, 500 N, 750 N and 1000 N) and the response in the form of stress, deformation, and strain was reported. This technique was capable of determining the stiffness of the designed prosthetic. The results showed lower displacement with higher stiffness behavior compared with other high-performance prosthetic feet. The test also showed the ability to hold out difficult activities of the foot that leads to springiness, skipping feet, standing, or even twisted feet. With less than 35% of the price for the same performance prosthetic feet on the market.