Lower Body Orthotic Calipers With Composite Braces

Abstract

Composite based materials are finding application in a large number of research and engineering spectrum due to its better mechanical properties (strength and stiffness), inherent surface finish, easiness in fabrication and installation and corrosion resistant. They are very strong and firm, yet very light in weight due to which lower weight-to-volume ratio can be achieved and stiffness to weight is 1.5 times greater than the non-ferrous materials like Aluminum. The work is undertaken in two parts. First and foremost being modeling and virtual estimation of mechanical properties using CREO and ANSYS for currently used aluminum based calipers and fabrication of the composites and testing of the same. A comparison is performed between the virtual and experimental results and also the effectiveness of composite based calipers over Aluminum ones is studied. Here two polymeric based composites are proposed for fabrication which are thermoplast and thermoset based composites respectively. The braces are modeled using a solid modeling Software, CREO and the same is tested using ANSYS.