Design of a Passive, Shear-Based Rotary Hydraulic Damper for Single-Axis Prosthetic Knees
Name
v05at07a064-detc2018-85962.pdf
Size
3.47 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
58880692fa21a052030993f2bc53a01f
Author(s)
Major, Matthew J.
Arelekatti, Murthy
Petelina, Nina T.
Johnson, William Brett
Winter, Amos G.
Date Issued
August 2018
Journal
Proceedings of the ASME 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
Publisher
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Citation
Arelekatti, V. N. Murthy, Nina T. Petelina, W. Brett Johnson, Amos G. Winter, and Matthew J. Major. “Design of a Passive, Shear-Based Rotary Hydraulic Damper for Single-Axis Prosthetic Knees.” Proceedings of the ASME 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, 26-29 August, 2018, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, ASME, 2018. © 2018 by ASME
Version
Final published version
Abstract
With over 30 million people worldwide in need of assistive devices, there is a great need for low-cost, high performance prosthetic technologies in the developing world. A majority of the hydraulic dampers used in prosthetic knee designs are highly specialized, expensive, require regular maintenance, and are incompatible for use with low-cost, single-axis prosthetic knees popular in developing countries. In this study, optimal damping coefficients were computed based on a theoretical analysis of gait, specifically during the transition from the stance to swing phase of human walking when a large damping torque is needed at the knee. A novel rotary hydraulic damper prototype was designed using high-viscosity silicone oil and a concentric meshing of fins for shearing the oil. The prototype was validated experimentally to provide the desired damping torque profile. For preliminary, user-centric validation of the prototype, a gait study on one above-knee amputee in India was conducted with four different damping magnitudes. Feedback from the subject validated the optimal damping torque magnitude predicted for minimizing gait deviations and for enabling able-bodied knee kinematics. The new rotary hydraulic damper design is novel, passive, and compatible with low-cost, single-axis knee prostheses. Topics: Shear (Mechanics) , Dampers , Design , Artificial limbs , Knee
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2018-85962
