Computational Design of an Additively Manufactured Origami-Based Hand Orthosis

DS 116: Proceedings of the DESIGN2022 17th International Design Conference

Year: 2022
Editor: Mario Štorga, Stanko Škec, Tomislav Martinec, Dorian Marjanović
Author: Melanie Oliveira Barros, Andreas Walker, Tino Stanković
Series: DESIGN
Institution: ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Section: Design for Healthcare
Page(s): 1231-1242
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.125
ISSN: 2732-527X (Online)

Abstract

This work investigates the application of origami as the underlying principle to realize a novel 3D printed hand orthosis design. Due to the special property of some origami to become rigid when forming a closed surface, the orthosis can be printed flat to alleviate the most of the post-processing, and at the same time provide rigid support for the immobilized limb in the folded state. The contributions are the origami-based hand orthosis design and corresponding computational design method, as well as lessons learned regarding the application of origami for the hand orthosis design.

Keywords: hand orthosis, origami-based design, additive manufacturing, computational design methods, biomedical design