Study of tensile, hardness, and compressive properties of prosthetic pylon made of ramie and carbon/glass hybrid composite materials

<ns3:p>Prosthetic pylons are the columns that connect the prosthesis to the person’s body and play a vital role in providing stability, comfort, and functional performance to prosthetic users. Improving the properties of the columns contributes significantly to enhancing the user experience. The research aims to develop prosthetic pylons’ mechanical properties using natural and synthetic fibres.We could achieve these objectives by performing the composite prosthetic pylon materials used to replace conventional prosthetic pylon materials made of titanium, aluminium, or stainless steel.The results demonstrated that the type and quantity of reinforcement layers had a substantial effect on the mechanical properties of laminated composites. The results showed that the samples made of two layers of synthetic hybrid (glass and carbon) fibers gave better properties in terms of tensile strength, Young’s modulus, hardness, and compressive strength were 123 MPa, 6.5 GPa, 86 shore D, and 80 MPa, respectively compared to the samples made of three layers of ramie natural fiber. At the same time, the percentage of elongation was higher for ramie reinforced composite samples.The vacuum method was used to produce specimens with polyester as the matrix, and varying numbers of synthetic hybrid (carbon and glass) and natural (ramie) fibre layers as reinforcing materials. The mechanical characteristics (tensile strength, elongation percentage at break, Young’s modulus, compressive strength, and hardness) of each type of composite material were tested and evaluated.The effect of both materials gave acceptable results and proved their suitability for use instead of some metal materials that cause fatigue, exhaustion, and discomfort to users.</ns3:p>