Simulation and performance evaluation of a new type of powered Dynamic Ankle Foot Orthosis

Dynamic Ankle Foot Orthosis (DAFO) is a revolutionary of the Ankle Foot Orthosis, which is an equipment used to control the motion and position of ankles. It is designed to correct deformities for patients who require treatment of disorders related to muscles and nerves functional failure. Unfortunately, the current designs of DAFO are limited only for patients who can move ankles by their own. This drives for new researches with the aim to develop an innovative development of powered DAFO and currently many researches are still in progress. This paper proposes a new type of DAFO model, which was fabricated locally and assesses its design parameters and functions using computer simulation and numerical analyses. The proposed DAFO was modeled in 3-dimensional using SOLIDWORKS 2010 and several simulations and analyses were carried out to evaluate the current design. Finite element analysis was conducted to determine deformation and stress distribution for DAFO made of two types of materials, which are Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and Polypropylene (PP). The failure and factor of safety (FOS) of the proposed model were evaluated under specified boundary conditions and load applied for static and motion condition. Results from this study show that the model functions well and do not fail during testing. The results from the motion analysis show that the DAFO moves according to the design specification. This proves that the material used is the right choice and the current design is acceptable. The current study also proves that computational simulation could be a useful and practical tool in aiding product design. Moreover, it saves time and cost compared to laboratory and destructive testing. Therefore, it can be concluded that the current study has successfully utilized computational analysis and simulation tools in developing the proposed DAFO.