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PHOTO: DAVID ETTINGER
Alphonso Peluso and a group of Illinois Tech students are working to build lighter, cheaper, and more aesthetically pleasing, and customizable prostheses.
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INNOVATION
Designing the Perfect Fit
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hen Alphonso Peluso, an expert in digital design and studio associate professor at the College of Architecture, wanted to explore the architectural possibilities of 3D printing, he faced a problem: the discordant scales of buildings and currently available printers. But then it hit him; rather than apply 3D printing to architecture, why not apply architectural principals to another area that could benefit from 3D printing technology: the design and manufacturing of prosthetic limbs. “Applying [3D printing] to prosthetics seemed like a great place to create alternatives and something beneficial, since the technology is relatively quick and relatively cheap,” says Peluso. Through Illinois Institute of Technology’s RES-MATCH program, which pairs faculty and students with similar research interests, Peluso met Jennifer Sabatka (BME 2nd Year), a biomedical engineering student who had previously worked in prosthetics as a high school senior. “I have always been interested in [prostheses]—how they look, how they function, and how they’re put together,” says Sabatka. “I’ve always wanted to explore how we could make them better.” Sabatka worked with fellow engineering student Tran Le (BME ’20), Ekerin Agboola (ARCH ’20), and Edvin Nielsen Johansson, a third-year product-design engineering student from Sweden, to develop a process for 3D printing an aesthetically pleasing and high-performing prosthesis for transtibial (below the knee) amputees, who make up the majority of individuals living with amputations. The team used generative design software, which optimizes the design to use the smallest amount of material possible while achieving the desired strength and durability to create the ideal structure. This, in turn, makes the prosthesis lighter and cheaper to produce than a handmade unit, while presenting opportunities to improve comfort.
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Illinois Tech Research
“On average, people with a [prostheses] burn twice as many calories as somebody who doesn’t,” says Sabatka. “So we decided a leg scan would be a part of the process so you can see how the muscle has healed over the bone to get the ideal shape.” The project not only proposes a new future of higher-quality and more-equitable prostheses, but it also emphasizes the value of a cross-disciplinary approach to solving difficult design challenges. “Seeing this project as an extension of architecture requires an adjustment of perspective,” adds Agboola. “Responding to this problem as an architect required abandoning my preconceptions about what belongs to architecture and what belongs to prosthetics.” —Andrew Connor
A close-up view of the material used in the transtibial prosthesis being developed by an Illinois Tech team
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