Members of the elderly population is disproportionately prone to experiencing mobility impairment due to their aging bodies and as a result have frail bodies that are at a higher risk of grave injury due to falling. In order to combat this assistive mobility devices such as exoskeletons have been developed to help patients enhance their range of motion. With additive manufacturing techniques, such as fused deposition modeling (FDM), becoming a more mainstream form of design, the inclusion of lightweight polymers such as nylon 12 as primary construction materials for these devices has increased. In this thesis computer aided design (CAD) software was used to design a prototype lower body exoskeleton and simulation software was used to give the device the characteristics of Stratasys' nylon 12 carbon fiber FDM material to verify it if could be used as the primary construction material for this device when extruded from a FDM printer on either the XZ or ZX printing plane. From the simulations it was found that the material printed along the XZ plane could create a device that could withstand the weight of an average elderly male patient (200 lbs.) as well as the 35 lbs. of force applied to the device by a linear actuation motor that would be used to extend and contract the exoskeleton leg.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1808379 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Joiner, Michael Andrew Lown |
| Contributors | Vaidyanathan, Vijay, Ecker, Melanie, Yang, Yong |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | viii, 79 pages, Text |
| Rights | Public, Joiner, Michael Andrew Lown, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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