Design and Development of Above Knee Prosthetic Knee Joint by Applying Design for Manufacture (DFM) Methodologies

There are many above knee amputees in our society today that have been disabled either by
disease, injuries, or birth defects. Hundred thousands of these amputees all over the world
need health care to get back an active life. However, prosthetic products available in existing
market are not economical and are difficult to be manufactured. Thus, the main objective of
this project is to design and develop an above knee prosthetic knee joint that can be
manufactured locally in order to investigate the possibility of cost reduction by
applying Design For Manufacture (DFM) methodology. Design for manufacture
methodologies will be used as the main function to determine the best manufacturing
method for a simple and economical prosthetic knee joint design. In future, further
studies can also be made to apply design for manufacture concept in other prosthetic
field. Significance of this project includes the disabled society impact especially in
rural areas because it would reduce cost of existing prosthetic knee joint. The project
t1ow include identification of problem, research on prosthetic knee joints, analyzing
existing product, selection of prosthetic knee types, identification of manufacturing
criteria, design and development of prosthetic knee joint prototype and finally
evaluation of design. Research has been done on Design for Manufacture (DFM) and
different types of prosthetic knee existing in the market. Besides, local distributor's
information has been obtained to gather data on the locally available prosthetic knee
joint and the price catalogue. Researches on patents are also done to analyze and
study the prosthetic knee joint design. Conceptual design, material selection and
manufacturing criteria have been carefully done by following Design for
Manufacture (DFM) principles. Engineering analysis is done with ANSYS software
on the loading mechanism and the model are designed using CATIA cad software.
The result of the cost analysis shows that the design in this project is. In conclusion,
Design for Manufacturing (DFM) methodologies is proven to be able to reduce cost
of the prosthetic knee joint.