Optimizing Prosthetic Limb Designs using the FEA Simulation and AHP Method

Currently about 35-40 million people worldwide require prosthetics, the scale of this issue is significant. However, the problems only prolong from there: not only are there limb rejects, the costs of these limbs are beyond a large proportion of the population’s income, the constant maintenance as well as the lack of specialized prosthetics such as those for athletics are only a few of the many more problems associated with this issue. To address this, this research paper goes into depth into research to determine primary factors to create a prosthetic and thus uses these factors to create an AHP matrix to analyze the relative importance of each factor and help the user choose a prosthetic best suited to them and their lifestyle. Using these factors, an ANSYS simulation was developed on different models to visualize the load using FEA and understand how it could be improved. Lastly, the TOPSIS method was implemented to rate the different models before the final model could be developed. The high rating of the running model on the ANSYS simulation and its close second rating in the TOPSIS calculations, resulted in that model being developed for the final design. A combination of primary, through interviews of prosthetic limb centers, and secondary, through official government websites, design websites as well as other websites of official organizations, such as WHO, to ensure high quality data and accuracy. The final features taken into consideration for the prosthetic were: weight, cost, material and application. Some other features implemented into the design were: an adaptable height feature, a steel spring blade to minimize the energy lost and topological optimization to future reduce the weight of the prosthetic, as a result the user gets a comfortable prosthetic well suited for their application.