Abstract

Sockets digital design of above-knee prosthetic for mass customization

Author(s): Yujun Lu, Qixia Shi, Suoxia Zhai

Aiming at two main problems of designing prosthetic sockets– time consuming and high cost, a digital design method of prosthetic sockets in mass customization for above-knee amputees is presented. Firstly, the numerical data representing the stump were obtained by the coordinate measuring machine (CMM). Then, feature points of the sockets were got by intersecting a set of rays with triangle patches to establish the master models of key modules. With these master models, the primary structure of above-knee prosthetic socket was made up. Finally, corresponding modules can be selected and configured to get a newindividual prosthetic socket for an above–knee amputee according to user’s specific body parameters information to meet different amputees’ requirements. Via this way, traditional individual design can be transfer to modularization design and design time and cost can be saved apparently.