Creating a Body Powered Prosthetic Arm with 3D Printing Technology

Sammanfattning: 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a technology that uses a digital model to print a three-dimensional object, layer by layer. Today, it is widely used in many different fields and provides a manufacturing method with advantages such as precision and the ability to print complex shapes from many different materials. 3D printed prostheses have recently gained a lot of interest thanks to the possibility to reduce material costs and production time. The aim of this thesis has been to create a body powered 3D printed prosthetic arm and evaluate the 3D printing technology for this purpose. With information gathered from a thorough literature review and interviews with a patient and his prosthetist, requirements for a prosthetic arm was decided upon. The resulting design was created with inspiration from organizations providing open source 3D printed prosthetic devices. The model was designed in two different softwares from Autodesk\textsuperscript{TM}; Fusion 360 and Meshmixer and printed in the material Nylon PA12 in an SLS printer at the Department of Design Sciences at LTH. \\ The final prototype is lightweight, easily maneuvered for the user and with a simplistic design. However, many aspects still require future work to develop a fully functional prosthetic device, which is discussed in the end of the thesis. The project has shown that 3D printing is an incredible method with potential to make prostheses more customized, cheaper and produced faster. Hopefully this area will continue to grow to help more patients.