Characterization and Buckling Investigation of Composite Materials to be used in the Prosthetic Pylon Manufacturing

Abstract

Abstract A prosthetic pylon is a part of an artificial lower limb, which is a very interesting area of biomedical engineering today. The research aims to show the hung innovations and developments of new suggested composite material, to modify the prosthetic pylon (which is generally made of lightweight metal such as aluminum, titanium, stainless steel, or an alloy of these), extends its life and increase the comfort of its user. Vacuum bagging technique was used to manufacture the samples which consist of constant perlon layers and a different number of composite material (Carbon or Glass) fiber layers as reinforcement materials at (0°/90°) orientation relative to the applied load and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as a resin. The work included two major parts; theoretical and experimental tests for the real case. The theoretical and experimental results showed that the modulus of elasticity, tensile strength, and critical buckling load increase with the increasing the number of composite fiber layers. The percentage of increase in modulus of elasticity, tensile strength and critical buckling load for the specimen with three carbon layers and perlon layers in PMMA matrix was compared with three glass layers and perlon layers in PMMA matrix specimen and it was (12.5%, 5% & 17%) respectively, at (0°/90°) fibers orientation relative to the applied force. Validation of the results is conducted by comparing with results in other literature, a good agreement between them was found.