Biomechanical Design of a Novel Six DOF Compliant Prosthetic Ankle-Foot 2.0 for Rehabilitation of Amputee

This paper develops a new design of a compliant prosthetic ankle-foot 2.0. The ankle-foot is a composite made of glass-fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP). The finite element analysis is used to evaluate the structural behavior of the ankle-foot, including the deformation, stress and strain energy. The Taguchi method is used to build a special orthogonal array. By using a differential evolution algorithm, the geometric parameters of the ankle-foot are determined. The result indicated that the optimal strain energy is improved approximately 155%. The maximum energy strain of 93.914 mJ is recognized. The results also revealed that the prosthetic ankle-foot is becoming more flexible due to the compliant ankle. Lastly, the prosthetic ankle-foot was proved to be effective for a human body up to 100 kg.