BACKGROUND The Jaipur foot is the gold standard in low-cost prosthetics, and the amputee population in low-income and middle-income countries has benefited immensely from this innovation. The ability of the Jaipur foot to mimic the behavior of a regular foot, albeit to a limited extent, has made it a popular choice among clinicians and patients. However, the immense popularity has also hindered further research because minimal efforts have been made to investigate the scope of improvement of the Jaipur foot, particularly with new materials. OBJECTIVE This article focuses on numerical and experimental analyses of various materials for the performance enhancements of the Jaipur foot. METHODS Contemporary materials are used in finite element analysis to filter the most suitable alternate material for microcellular rubber. The performance of the Jaipur foot fabricated with alternate material is compared with the conventional Jaipur foot through compression testing simulating gait cycle conditions. RESULTS The EVA foot showed 1-3 mm higher deformation than the MCR foot during the dorsiflexion or heel strike phases, which indicates an appropriate shock absorption and energy storage capacity in heel striking conditions. In forefoot strike phase or plantarflexion, the EVA foot and MCR foot showed identical behavior in deformations. Replacing the MCR with EVA also resulted in reduced weight of the Jaipur foot by 23%. CONCLUSIONS The weight reduction can help the amputee to expend less energy, thereby improving patient comfort and walking patterns and hence a more natural performance similar to a regular human foot.

中文翻译：

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用于增强斋浦尔足部性能的替代材料的实验和数值分析。

背景 斋浦尔脚是低成本假肢的黄金标准，低收入和中等收入国家的截肢者从这项创新中受益匪浅。斋浦尔脚能够模仿普通脚的行为，尽管程度有限，这使其成为临床医生和患者的热门选择。然而，巨大的受欢迎程度也阻碍了进一步的研究，因为人们在研究斋浦尔脚的改进范围方面所做的努力很少，特别是在新材料方面。目的本文重点对各种材料进行数值和实验分析，以增强斋浦尔脚的性能。方法采用现代材料进行有限元分析，筛选出最适合微孔橡胶的替代材料。通过模拟步态循环条件的压缩测试，将采用替代材料制造的 Jaipur 脚的性能与传统 Jaipur 脚进行比较。结果在背屈或足跟着地阶段，EVA足比MCR足表现出高1-3 mm的变形，这表明在足跟着地条件下具有适当的减震和能量存储能力。在前足触地阶段或跖屈阶段，EVA 足和 MCR 足表现出相同的变形行为。用 EVA 取代 MCR 还使 Jaipur 脚的重量减轻了 23%。结论 重量减轻可以帮助截肢者消耗更少的能量，从而改善患者的舒适度和行走方式，从而获得与正常人脚相似的更自然的表现。