A Low-Cost Novel Design for Knee Orthosis

In the present study, a torsional spring-based passive knee brace design has been proposed to work as a shock absorber and reduce the load transmitted through the knee joint. The design consisted of thigh and shank support, which forms a hinge joint in the sagittal plane to support the knee extension using a double torsional spring. The brace was modelled considering the anthropometry data of 90th percentile Indian male population. The proposed design was developed in NX 12.0, and later, a finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out in ANSYS Workbench 16.0 to study model deformation. The designed knee brace was found to provide approximately  50% rebound of the load transmitted through the knee joint of a person weighing 80 kg. Further possible modifications in the design were discussed in order to improve the workability of the proposed model.