SCOLIOSIS BRACE DESIGN

RESEARCH PROJECT -- ANISOTROPIC PATTERNS DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION

OVERVIEW

Team Project

Master's Research Project

Carnegie Mellon Univerisity

Pittsburgh, PA

January 2016 - May 2017

SKILLS

THE CHALLENGE

Scoliosis is a lateral curvature in the normal straight vertical line of the spine which might be caused by several different reasons. Wearing a brace is the most common nonsurgical treatment for both adolescents and adults.

Although it is an effective method to stop the curved spine from further progression, wearing a brace can be very uncomfortable since it fully restrain the patient's torso movement. Skin irritation is another problem patients complain about.

SIMPLE INTRODUCTION OF RESEARCH WORK

Testing a new built-in tool in Inventor which generates aesthetic patterns based on user input and recommending improvements to the function of the tool and user experience.
Simulating patterned scoliosis braces' abilities to withstand pressure in ANSYS to help inform product design; Conducting literature review on the topic.
Creating and simulating patterns in ANSYS for further product development to evaluate their abilities to deform under pressure.

TOOL INTERFACE

I used this tool to generate patterns on curved surfaces.

TEST THE EFFECT OF ANISOTROPIC PATTERNS ON MATERIAL STIFFNESS

I cut these ellipses of different size, density and orientation on elastic form sheets using laser cutter. There are two circles on the edge of each sheet. I held the side at one circle using a clamp and put on the same weight under each sheet and measured the elongation of the sheets after 10min.

The test was to verify that anisotropic patterns like ellipses do have an impact on material stiffness. For the sheet in the picture on the left below, the stiffness of the horizontal direction would be smaller than the stiffness of the vertical direction.

JEWELRIES DESIGNED IN THIS TOOL AND 3D PRINTED

IDEATION

Besides jewelries, we have thought about applied patterns to wet suit, shoulder brace, gym gloves, kinesio tape.

And finally, we all agreed that scoliosis brace would be an ideal application.

SIMULATION ON BRACE

Here's a comparison between the simulation of the original brace and the brace applied with patterns. This is just a preliminary simulation to demonstrate adding patterns does make a difference in stiffness. The boundary conditions (second picture) are not necessarily accurate.

ORIGINAL BRACE

PATTERNED BRACE

GENERAL PATTERN DESIGN AND SIMULATION

Due to the lack of background knowledge on biomedical engineering and the complexity of a scoliosis brace simulation, I couldn't find out the exact boundary conditions should be added to the brace.

I decided to switch to another direction on simulation on sheet models with different patterns to find out which shape fit the application the most.

I was inspired by kinesio tape that there were so many different ways to apply the tape on muscle groups. And I developed my general patterns based on the most commonly used ways to apply kinesio tape. Then I ran simulation on the models and got the best pattern: slit and half-bone shape pattern.