Experimental Studies on 3D Printing of Automatically Designed Customized Wrist-Hand Orthoses

Abstract

The paper presents results of research conducted on a batch of additively manufactured individualized openwork wrist–hand orthoses made of thermoplastics and designed automatically based on 3D-scanned geometry of a given patient. The aim of the work was to establish an automated design process and find a reliable set of parameters for rapid and affordable manufacturing of usable orthoses on popular 3D printers, with little or no supervision of the process. The paper presents motivations, methodology of automated design, plan of manufacturing and testing, the obtained results in terms of process stability, fit and assessment by patient and strength of the obtained orthoses. Almost 100 manufacturing processes of ready-to-use orthosis parts were carried out in a controlled environment and their results were analyzed thoroughly. The results are promising, as most of the obtained products fulfil the strength criteria, although not all of them meet the economic criteria. As a result, a recommended set of process parameters was determined. These parameters were included in a prototype of the automated design and in a production system developed by the authors.

Optimization of Extrusion-Based 3D Printing Process Using Neural Networks for Sustainable Development

“…We view our results as preliminary. They lead to further implications: in the broadest context, CI-based optimization of 3D printing processes within the Industry 4.0 paradigm is possible [ 68 ]. This requires not only efficient technical solutions, but also correct consumer behavior and attitudes toward the mentioned waste management [ 69 ].…”

Study on Properties of Automatically Designed 3D-Printed Customized Prosthetic Sockets

“…The system, abbreviated AutoMedPrint (automated 3D printing of medical products), has a task of automated design and production preparation of individualized orthopedic supplies—mainly limb orthoses and upper-limb prostheses. The system’s concept is described in the authors’ earlier works [ 30 , 31 ], and its use is presented in Figure 2 , while a flow graph of working with the system is presented in Figure 3 .…”

“…In general, an intelligent CAD model can be regarded as one that is automatically updated on the basis of knowledge description stored in an external file (a so-called design table) [ 32 ]; such models are frequently used for mass customization purposes. The intelligent model was made by the authors, implementing methodologies shown in previous studies [ 30 , 31 , 33 ] and also using the approach presented in [ 34 ]. The complete prosthesis is a modular one, intended for use by children in daily situations; the hand could be either mechanical (a rotary grip for driving a bike or a scooter) or cosmetic (prosthetic hand).…”

“…Both sockets have a wall thickness of 4 mm. The wall thickness was selected arbitrarily on the basis of existing, examined prosthetic sockets (commercial ones) and previous experiences of the authors, e.g., in production of orthoses [ 30 ], to make sure that the strength of the sockets would be sufficient. These two sockets were given codenames of VAC and VEL, respectively, to be used in experiments and the description of the results.…”

A Smart Parametric 3D Printing Hand Assistive Device With a Practical Physically Intervention Feedback Based on the Embedded IMU Sensor

“…However, there was no significant difference in the performance of the task; whether an assistive device was worn, did not affect the actual performance. In contrast, 3D printing applied on orthoses have been introduced in papers by Górski et al [20]. However, the parametric 3D hand model proposed by this study allow quick generation of 3D hand geometry approximating to a user's actual hand.…”