Abstract
Many people with limb loss cannot afford a prosthesis that recreates the function of a human hand. While designs for functional prosthetic hands exist, most require extensive modification to fit each wearer’s unique stump. The purpose of this study is to develop a design solution for a low-cost 3D printed prosthetic hand, using thermoplastic polyurethane material, that can be easily customized to fit the specific needs of each wearer. This paper discusses two components of the study: the fitting of a custom open-source 3D printed prosthetic hand; the development of an improved prosthesis using flexible TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) material. This study, still in an early stage of development, shows that a hybrid 3D printing process with rigid and elastic materials can improve affordable prosthetic hand design and assembly. Testing demonstrates the potential for a new type of low-cost prosthetic hand that moves and looks more like the real thing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Industrial Safety and Hygiene News. https://www.ishn.com
Amputee Coalition. https://www.amputee-coalition.org
Raichle, K., et al.: Prosthesis use in persons with lower- and upper-limb amputation. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. 45, 969 (2008)
Koprnicky, J., Šafka, J., Najman, P.: 3D printed bionic prosthetic hands. In: IEEE International Workshop of Electronics, Control, Measurement, Signals and their Application to Mechatronics, pp. 1–3. IEEE Press, New York (2017)
Liow, L., Clark, A.: OLYMPIC: a modular, tendon-driven prosthetic hand with novel finger and wrist coupling mechanisms. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 5, 299–306 (2019)
Choi, K.Y., Akhtar, A., Bretl, T.: A compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 6694–6699. IEEE Press, New York (2017)
Alkhatib, F., Mahdi, E., Cabibihan, J.J.: Design and analysis of flexible joints for a robust 3D printed prosthetic hand. In: 16th IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, pp. 784–789. IEEE Press, New York (2019)
Kate, J.T., Smit, G., Breedveld, P.: 3D-printed upper limb prostheses: a review. Disabil. Rehabil.: Assist. Technol. 12, 300–314 (2017)
Belter, J., Segil, J., Dollar, A., Weir, R.: Mechanical design and performance specifications of anthropomorphic prosthetic hands: a review. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. (JRRD) 50, 599–618 (2013)
Vizzeswarapu, P.: Plastic to smile about – thermoplastic polyurethane. Medical Device Developments (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gorman, N., Feng, J., Marin Pareja, S.Y. (2021). Enhancing Prosthetic Hand Functionality with Elastic 3D-Printed Thermoplastic Polyurethane. In: Kalra, J., Lightner, N.J., Taiar, R. (eds) Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare and Medical Devices. AHFE 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 263. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80744-3_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80744-3_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80743-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80744-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)