An Integrated Approach to Design and Manufacturing of an Artificial Leg

According to the statistics, there are more than 2 million people living with limb lost in the United States. Most of the existing prosthetic legs in the market today are ranging from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, and the lifespan of a prosthetic leg is only from 3 to 5 years. With that being said, prosthetic component is not a one-time cost for the patients over their lifetimes and it can be very expensive. For this research project, I was asked to come up with a prosthetic leg design that are durable, can be used by both male and female, relatively maintenance free, light weight, low cost, and also to open a company to manufacture and sell the prosthesis design. The methodology is to first look at the existing prosthetic leg solutions to familiarize myself with the components of the prosthetic and identify the specification for each component of the prosthetic. Next is to use Computer-aided design (CAD) to design the components of the prosthetic. I can also utilize CAD to perform Finite Element Analysis to see how stresses are distributed throughout the design when the force is applied on the design. Finally, a business plan is created to facilitate the start-up of the company. A possible ramification of my proposed solution would be that the business plan is very hypothetical which could be very different from the real-world scenario.Industrial Engineering, Department ofHonors Colleg