The design of the adaptive prosthetic socket

Abstract

The prosthetic socket is the key part connecting the prosthesis and the stump. It needs to be functional, safe, and comfortable at the same time. However, the volume fluctuation of the stump causes the incompatibility between the stump and the socket. This paper designs an adaptive prosthetic socket with rope-driven to fit stump volume fluctuation. The designed adaptive prosthetic socket with constant force characteristic using superelastic shape memory alloy may solve the problem of uneven pressure on the stump due to stump volume fluctuation and adapt stump volume. To obtain a good constant force range, the constant force characteristic of the socket is optimized and validated by finite element analysis. The experimental results show that the constant force mechanism using the C-shaped shape memory alloy sheets can obtain good constant force characteristics, and the socket can apply a constant force to the stump to solve the problem of uneven pressure distribution between the stump and the socket.