Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-28-2025

Publication Title

Results in Engineering

Volume

27

First page number:

1

Last page number:

14

Abstract

Properly designed prosthetics hands can enhance the quality of life for those suffering from limb loss. Recently, 3D-printed prosthetic hands are becoming common. In these prostheses, fingers flex through the tendons that are activated by motion of the wrist. To provide spring action, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) hyperelastic joints are used to connect digits to each other as well as to the wrist. While these designs are common, no model for the relationship between tendon tension and joint flexion is available. This work has developed a quasi-static virtual work-based model to predict the relationship between tendon forces and the flexion of the digits of a prosthetic finger with TPU joints. The equivalent spring stiffnesses of the joints were determined based on the results of flexural tests. The proposed model was verified experimentally to model errors < 5.5 % under different loads. The proposed model can be used to design tendon-actuated fingers with TPU joints effectively.

Keywords

Prosthetic fingers; Hyperelastic joints; Tendon-driven underactuated fingers; Spring stiffness of hyperelastic joints

Disciplines

Biomaterials | Biomedical | Biomedical Devices and Instrumentation

File Format

pdf

File Size

11200 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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