THE INFLUENCE OF VARIOUS FIBER REINFORCEMENTS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF TRANSTIBIAL PROSTHETIC SOCKET

Abstract

ABSTRACT

            Bamboo and other plant-based fibers have become more popular in material science. This work involves the fabrication of a composite prosthetic socket by combining polymethyl methacrylate 80:20 with natural and synthetic fibers. Hybrid laminated composite materials for transtibial prosthetic sockets are produced through vacuum casting and classified into three groups. These groups incorporate different combinations of bamboo, Kevlar, UHMWPE, and glass fibers. This study confirms the experimental results for specific fiber volume fractions using numerical finite element analyses by using ANSYS-22. Results show that the mechanical and physical properties are substantially influenced by the type and amount of reinforcing fiber layers. Laminates comprising four layers of bamboo fiber plus two layers of Kevlar fiber demonstrated the highest ultimate tensile strength (UTS) values at 179 MPa. Hybrid laminates consisting of 4 layers of bamboo plus 2 layers of UHMWPE and 4 layers of bamboo plus 2 layers of glass exhibited ultimate tensile strength (UTS) values of 128 MPa and 89 MPa, respectively. The research indicates that biocomposites perform best when using a proper blend of natural and synthetic reinforcing fibers. The safety factor investigation indicates that all the laminated composite samples, including those with varying lamination distributions, possess a minimum safety factor of 3.06 for the below-knee socket, which appears safe and satisfactory. This study comprehensively investigates the benefits of various amounts of synthetic fibers and natural fiber lamination layups for enhancing the strength of PMMA resin composites. It gives us new information about a topic that hasn't been looked into before.