Article

Carbon fiber (CF) ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) can improve gait by increasing ankle
plantar-flexor power and improving plantar-flexor ankle joint moment and energy
efficiency compared with posterior leaf spring AFOs made of thermoplastic.
However, fabricating a CF AFO to optimize the performance of the individual user
may require multiple AFOs and expensive fabrication costs. Finite element
analysis (FEA) models were developed to predict the mechanical behavior of AFOs
in this study. Three AFOs, two made of CF composite material and one made of
thermoplastic material, were fabricated and then mechanically tested to produce
force-displacement data. The FEA models were validated by comparing model
predictions with mechanical testing data performed under the same loading and
boundary conditions. The actual mechanical testing demonstrated that CF performs
better than thermoplastic. The simulation results showed that FEA models produced
accurate predictions for both types of orthoses. The relative error of the energy
return ratio predicted by the CF AFO FEA model developed in this study is less
than 3%. We conclude that highly accurate FEA models will allow orthotists to
improve CF AFO fabrication without wasting resources (time and money) on trial
and error fabrications that are expensive and do not consistently improve AFO and
user performance.

Langue : ANGLAIS