Track: Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

Medical practices are greatly impacted by new engineering technologies. For those who suffer from disordered feet, several engineering tools are used in designing and manufacturing medical insoles. There is a significant percentage of people who need medical insoles due to flat feet, hollow feet, diabetes, etc. The advancement of engineering materials, computer aided design, and computer aided manufacturing gave podiatrists the ability to do their jobs better. Two advanced engineering techniques were used to design and manufacture medical insoles in this study, one is 3D scanning, and the other is finite element analysis (FEA). Podiatrists can create a complete foot solid model using 3D scanning and CAD software. Using the same CAD package, the insole could be designed from this model. Different manufacturing techniques could be used to create a typical insole using the foot model. FEA enables analysis of the disordered foot with different insole designs in order to optimize patient comfort. A statistical analysis was conducted in this paper to prove the unique needs of every foot, even for the same individual. A FEA was conducted to examine the effect of the proposed insole on the plantar pressure of the disordered foot.

Keywords
Orthotic insoles, Flatfoot, FEA and Reverse engineering.