Prosthetics and Orthotics Manufacturing Initiative
Abstract
This project was previously titled "Custom Composite Orthotics and Prosthetics" in the FY 2009 President's Budget. New manufacturing technologies are required for the development of custom composite orthotics and prosthetics for injured men and women of the armed services. Orthotics and prosthetics present a two-fold challenge in that they contain a high degree of customization in design and a labor intensive means of manufacturing. Recent advances in solid modeling, reconfigurable tooling, room temperature resin chemistry, automated fabrication of custom fiber architectures, and novel resin infusion methods have created the potential to develop a highly integrated, low cost, custom orthotic and prosthetic technology to address the unique requirements and needs of the armed services. Rapid prototyping technologies and new composite manufacturing solutions have shown the potential to provide a 24-hour turnaround time for component fabrication. The current state of the art for orthotics is to thermoform plastic materials such as polypropylene to create a custom fit orthotic. New manufacturing techniques integrated with advanced polymer composite technologies have allowed for initial prototyping work using woven glass reinforced adiprene. These new materials are compliant, but sufficiently rigid for use with prosthetics. The integration of composite materials could provide up to a 20 percent weight savings and an approximate 40 percent reduction in skin contact over current thermoform plastic solutions. Outcome: New rapid prototyping and affordable manufacturing processes resulting in 20 percent weight savings and 40 percent reduction in skin contact. Improved reliability of new composite prosthetics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2011
- Source ID
- 19cc8dde182e7770d9a4bacdb7026ca9