Prosthetic Sockets: Tensile Behavior of Vacuum Infiltrated Fused Deposition Modeling Sandwich Structure Composites

Abstract

The development of novel materials will enable a new generation of prosthetic devices to be built with additive manufacturing (AM). Vacuum infiltrated sandwich structure composites are a promising approach for building prosthetic sockets via AM. In this paper, we test the tensile properties of 18 different composite material configurations using ASTM D638. These composites were manufactured using a custom vacuum infiltration method and had varying filament materials, infiltrated matrix materials, and print directions. Several material-matrix-print composites showed higher ultimate tensile strengths and reduced anisotropy compared to full-infill control samples. However, the mechanical properties of these composites were limited by a large degree of porosity due to the manufacturing method. Still, the results were sufficiently promising to create a proof of concept prosthetic socket via the vacuum infiltration method. Future research should focus on reducing porosity defects and investigating additional material-matrix-print combinations.