Design and evaluation of a novel upper limb body-powered terminal device with voluntary opening and voluntary closing capabilities

The field of upper limb prosthetics focuses on the development of artificial replacement devices for upper limb loss, from partial finger loss to amputation of the entire arm at the shoulder. Hand and hook prostheses are designed to replace the functionality of a missing hand and can be powered either by external sources (e.g. electricity) or by...

Modelling Micromotion of Implants in the Rat Femur: A rat femoral knee prosthesis to simulate aseptic loosening

Background: Aseptic loosening [AL] of cementless implants is causing approximately 60% of total knee and total hip arthroplasty revisions. AL is caused among other factors by micromotion. The result is that the bone around the prosthesis is replaced by a fibrous membrane. This fibrous membrane allows for more micromotion and we thus enter a...

Growing Prostheses: Design of a Prosthetic Socket to Accommodate Pediatric Growth

Upper-limb prosthetic device rejection rates have been estimated at up to 26\% for adult users and up to 45\% for pediatric users, while non-wear rates are estimated at 20\% and 16\%, respectively. Yet, upper-limb prostheses are of focus in only 20\% of the reviewed published literature (60\% less than lower-limb prostheses), with less than half...

Design and evaluation of a new passive adjustable prosthetic hand comprising a novel control method

Master-thesis work on the design and evaluation of an adaptive passive hand prosthesis, with a novel control method.

Two-degree-of-freedom pneumatically powered wrist prosthesis

The vast developments in the electronic industry over the past few decades have provided smaller and lighter electrical components that spurred advances in dexterous upper extremity prostheses. Prosthetic companies have commercialized anthropomorphic artificial hands including over 10 different grasp patterns and auto grasp features to prevent...

The Lightweight Delft Cylinder Hand, the First Multi-Articulating Hand That Meets the Basic User Requirements

Rejection rates of upper limb prostheses are high (23-45%). Amputees indicate that the highest design priority should be reduction of the mass of the prosthetic device. Despite all efforts, the mass of the new prosthetic hands is 35-73% higher than that of older hands. Furthermore current hands are thicker than a human hand, they operate slower...

Towards better perception: A first perspective on the perception of operating force and cable displacement in shoulder harness controlled body powered prostheses

The available shoulder harness controlled prostheses do no fulfill the requirements of the users. It is unknown for which operating forces and cable displacements the user can make good use of proprioceptive feedback without feeling pain, discomfort or fatigue. These operating forces and cable displacements can be related to grasping forces and...

Ultralight Pressure Regulator for Application in Pneumatic Prostheses

Available pressure regulators are considered too heavy for application in pneumatic prostheses. Goal of this paper is developing a lighter pressure regulator adapted for this speci?c application. We present an ultralight mechanical pressure regulator with several possible con?gurations as well as an optimization strategy for easy adaptation of...

Mechanical Stability of Cementless Implants: The Glenoid Replacement

The aim of this project is to evaluate the contribution of different variables to the mechanical (in)stability of a cementless glenoid component. This is done using both numerical and experimental methods that allow the measurement or estimation of the bone-implant interface micromotions around the glenoid component in several scenarios that are...

Design of a transradial socket

Sometimes children are born with (part of) an arm missing. Next to congenital loss, children or adults can loose their arm due to an accident or illness. The missing arm can be replaced with a prosthesis, connected to the arm remnant by a socket. Existing sockets tend to have a hot and humid climate and some sockets are difficult to don and doff...

Handschoencompensatiemechanisme

Rapport Nr. N-270 - Handprothesen worden vaak bedekt met een cosmetische handschoen om op deze manier de kunsthand een zo natuurlijk mogelijk voorkomen te geven. Een nadeel van deze handschoen i s echter dat deze bij het openen van de kunsthand een tegenwerkend koppel levert. Om deze tegenwerking op te heffen wordt gezocht naar een mechanisme...

Belastbaarheid van de menselijke huid op druk- en schuifkrachten

In deze skriptie worden resultaten uit de literatuur op het gebied van de mechanische belastbaarheid van de menselijke huid behandeld. Daarbij wordt alleen gekeken naar die belastinggevallen, waarvan verwacht kan worden dat ze bij het dragen van pro- en orthesen zullen voorkomen: drukkracht (eventueel negatief) loodrecht op de huid en...

Kinderpolsprothese voor flexie en rotatie (passief)

Onderzocht wordt een eenvoudig principeontwerp voor een kinderpolsprothese,geschikt voor rotatie zowel als flexie, waarbij de belangrijkste 'ontwerpkriteria zijn de eenvoud van bediening en de fabrikagekosten.