Development and Manufacturing of Flexible Lightweight Walker for Fractured Foot

Abstract

This study includes two main parts. The first part encompasses the manufacturing process; we made two types of AFO’s modified static AFO and adjustable hinge AFO. The materials used in manufacturing are polypropylene and steel. Fabrication is done using a vacuum molding technique. An ankle orthosis test for a patient who suffers from ankle fracture caused by a sports injury. The second part of the research involves testing with dynamic gait analysis on the treadmill and F-Socket. Besides, the analysis of the AFO’s models is illustrated to determine the fatigue safety factor and the analysis of the Von-Mises stress. Also, the results of the gait cycle (GRF, Pressure distribution, Center of Pressure (COP), Candace, Stride length, and footprint analysis) used to show the significant difference between the pathological subjects and normal person who are wearing ankle-foot orthoses (AFO’s) compare with a normal subject (healthy person). Measuring the interference (pressure and force) between the legs with AFO’s area of contact for all subjects then using this data for analysis of the mathematical models by used ANSYS V.15 software. Where it shows that the highest stress concentration in the ankle joint region, where the stress reached 418.9 MPa, the safety factor is 2.4 in adjustable hinge AFO, and for modified static AFO (192.8 MPa), the safety factor (0.447). On the other side, a questionnaire was conducted for a certain number of patients to find the difference between the manufactured models, to know the acceptance by the patient for AFO’s.