Process Planning for the Fuse Deposition Modeling of Ankle-Foot-Othoses

Abstract

Ankle-foot-orthosis (AFO) is a common assistive device orthoses to provide the support of the foot for users who have the drop foot syndrome. Custom AFOs offer better fit, comfort and functional performance than pre-fabricated ones. The 3D-printing technique is ideal for fabrication of personalized AFOs. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is a 3D-printing method with the desired strength and material deposition rate for custom AFO applications. The process planning is critical for the cycle time and quality for FDM of AFOs. Four steps in the process planning are: 1) orientation determination, 2) support generation, 3) slicing and 4) tool path generation. In the orientation determination, several factors are taken into accounts to improve the printability and mechanical performance of the fabricated AFO. To reduce the support structure, structural optimizations are applied on the AFO part without compromising of the strength. Adaptive slicing strategy is used to slice the AFO with full consideration of its geometric characteristics. In the tool-path generation, wavy tool-path is developed to improve the manufacturing process and enhance the structural strength by parameters optimization. This study demonstrates the importance of path planning for FDM for custom AFOs.