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The aim of this work is the design of a new customised elbow orthosis completely realized by Additive Manufacturing and the development of generative algorithms for parametric modelling and creation of 3D patterns to be adapted to the CAD model. This work describes a method to perfect the design of a custom elbow orthosis. A reverse engineering approach has been used to digitalize the patient’s arm and the subsequent CAD modelling of the structure of the custom elbow orthosis has been performed. In particular, two algorithms have been implemented for the creation of 3D patterns and Voronoi tessellations. Subsequently, FEM analyses have been carried out to validate the design. Finally, a prototype of the elbow orthosis with Voronoi tessellation has been realized by means of the SLS technology. The results obtained have demonstrated that the implemented algorithm solved the problems found during CAD modelling with conventional software. Furthermore, the results of FEM analyses have validated the design choices. All this allowed realizing the prototype by AM technologies without problems. Moreover, the new proposed modelling approaches allows creating, in an interactive way, patterns on complex surfaces. The results of this research activity present innovative elements of originality in the CAD modelling sector, which can contribute to solving problems related to the modelling for Additive Manufacturing. Furthermore, another innovative characteristic of the device is the use of torsion springs that simulate the action of physiotherapists during exercises for patient rehabilitation.

Despite the widespread use of reverse total shoulder arthroplasty, the fundamental effects of implant configuration on certain biomechanical outcomes have not been completely elucidated especially for the most innovative prostheses. Aim of this work is to investigate the behaviour of a new reverse shoulder prosthesis, characterized by a humeral tray with a variable offset, designed to increase the range of motion and to reduce the impingement. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effect of reverse shoulder implant design parameters on the deltoid muscle forces, required to produce abduction, and on the shoulder range of motion, in order to provide a more systematic understanding of the fundamental effects of humeral component positioning on the implant performances. The study has been implemented using virtual prototypes of the shoulder-prosthesis assembly. The shape of the prosthesis has been digitally acquired via a 3D scanner and the CAD models of all the components have been created. Through CT images, 3-dimensional models of the shoulder bones have been reconstructed and assembled with the prosthesis components. Numerical FEM models have been set up in order to evaluate how the abduction force changes depending on the humeral tray offset. Using the virtual prototypes of the shoulder-prosthesis assembly, a range of motion analysis has been carried out by setting up a collision detection analysis in a 3D parametric modeling environment. Different humeral tray positions were investigated and four different motions of the arm were simulated. Obtained results have demonstrated that a suitable positioning of the humeral tray can offer significant biomechanical advantages in terms of range of motion and abduction force.

Tibial fractures are common injuries in people. The proper treatment of these fractures is important in order to recover complete mobility. The aim of this work was to investigate if screw positioning in plates for proximal tibial fractures can affect the stability of the system, and if it can consequently influence the patient healing time. In fact, a more stable construct could allow the reduction of the non-weight-bearing period and consequently speed up the healing process. For that purpose, virtual models of fractured bone/plate assemblies were created, and numerical simulations were performed to evaluate the reaction forces and the maximum value of the contact pressure at the screw/bone interface. A Schatzker type I tibial fracture was considered, and four different screw configurations were investigated. The obtained results demonstrated that, for this specific case study, screw orientation affected the pressure distribution at the screw/bone interface. The proposed approach could be used effectively to investigate different fracture types in order to give orthopaedists useful guidelines for the treatment of proximal tibial fractures.

The spreading of high computational resources at very low costs led, over the years, to develop new numerical approaches to simulate the fluid surrounding a sail and to investigate the fluid–structure interaction. Most methods have concentrated on upwind sails, due to the difficulty of implementing downwind sailing configurations that present, usually, the problem of massive flow separation and large displacements of the sail under wind load. For these reasons, the problem of simulating the fluid–structure interaction (FSI) on downwind sails is still subject of intensive investigation. In this paper, a new weak coupled procedure between a RANS solver and a FEM one has been implemented to study the FSI problem in downwind sailing configurations. The proposed approach is based on the progressive increasing of the wind velocity until reaching the design speed. In this way, the structural load is also applied progressively, therefore, overcoming typical convergence difficulties due to the non-linearity of the problem. Simulations have been performed on an all-purpose fractional gennaker. The new proposed method has been also compared with a classic weak FSI approach. Comparable results have been obtained in terms of flying shape of the gennaker and fluid-dynamic loads. The most significant characteristic of the proposed procedure is the easiness to find a solution in a very robust way without convergence problem, and also the capability to reduce the simulation time with regard to the computational cost.

Aim of this work is to investigate the behaviour of a new reverse shoulder prosthesis, characterized by a humeral metaphysis with a variable offset, designed to increase the range of movements and to reduce the impingement. In particular, by means of virtual prototypes of the prosthesis, different offset values of the humeral metaphysis have been analysed in order to find the best positioning able to maximize the range of movements of the shoulder joint. The abduction force of the deltoid, at different offset values, has been also estimated. The study has been organized as follows. In the first step, the point clouds of the surfaces of the different components of the prosthesis have been acquired by a 3D scanner. This kind of scanner allows to convert camera images into three-dimensional models by analysing the moire fringes. In the second step, the acquired point clouds have been post-processed and converted into CAD models. In the third step, all the 3D reconstructed models have been imported and assembled through a CAD system. After, a collision analysis has been performed to detect the maximum angular positions of the arm at different metaphysis offset values. In the last step, FEM models of shoulder joint with the new prosthesis have been created. Different analyses have been performed to estimate how the deltoid abduction force varies depending on the offset of the humeral tray. The study allowed to understand how the offset of the metaphysis affects the performances of the shoulder. The obtained results can be effectively used to give surgeons useful guidelines for the installation of these kinds of implants.

In this work the mechanical behaviour of a core reinforced composite sandwich structure is studied. The sandwich employs a Glass Reinforced Polymer (GRP) orthotropic material for both the two external skins and the inner core web. In particular, the core is designed in order to cooperate with the GRP skins in membrane and flexural properties by means of the addition of a corrugated laminate into the foam core. An analytical model has been developed to replace a unit cell of this structure with an orthotropic equivalent thick plate that reproduces the in plane and out of plane behaviour of the original geometry. Different validation procedures have been implemented to verify the quality of the proposed method. At first a comparison has been performed between the analytical model and the original unit cell modelled with a Finite Element mesh. Elementary loading conditions are reproduced and results are compared. Once the reliability of the analytical model was assessed, this homogenised model was implemented within the formulation of a shell finite element. The goal of this step is to simplify the FE analysis of complex structures made of corrugated core sandwiches; in fact, by using the homogenised element, the global response of a real structure can be investigated only with the discretization of its mid-surface. Advantages are mainly in terms of time to solution saving and CAD modelling simplification. Last step is then the comparison between this FE model and experiments made on sandwich beams and panels whose skins and corrugated cores are made of orthotropic cross-ply GRP laminates. Good agreement between experimental and numerical results confirms the validity of the proposed model.

In this paper, two optimization approaches to improve the product design process have been analysed. Through the analysis of a case study, concerning the designing of a new High Energy Absorption Rear Underrun Protective Device (HEARUPD), two different optimization approaches (simplex and simulated annealing) have been compared. In the implemented optimization processes, the crash between an economy car and the rear part of a truck has been simulated by dynamic numerical (FEM) analyses. Moreover, authors have proposed the use of a suitable linear function of four variables with the purpose of reducing the multi-objective optimization processes to mono-objective ones. That has been made to simplify the analysis procedures without affecting the quality and the completeness of the optimization processes. The obtained results, as well as showing the high effectiveness of the integrated use of numerical crash analyses and optimization methods, demonstrate that simplex method is more effective than simulated annealing one for optimization problems where the single analysis loop requires much time. Even if the solutions are quite similar in terms of calculated values of the objective function, design and state variables, simplex method needs shorter computational time than simulated annealing to obtain an optimized solution.

During the braking phase, the heat produced by friction between pads and disc cannot be entirely dissipated. Consequently, the brake disc, especially if very hard braking occur, can accumulate large amounts of heat in a short time so producing high gradients of temperature on it. Under these conditions, functionality and safety of the brake system can be compromised. The object of this study is to investigate, under extreme working conditions, the thermomechanical behaviour of different brake rotors in order to evaluate their efficiency and stability and to identify any compromising weakness on them. In particular, by means of FEM thermo-mechanical coupled analyses, one full disc and three ventilated rotors with different shapes have been studied. A very hard (fading) test has been used to evaluate the performances of the discs in terms of temperature distribution, stresses and strains. Obtained results demonstrate that the analysed ventilated discs, unlike the full rotor, can be effectively used in very hard working conditions, always ensuring high safety levels. Among the studied rotors, the curved-vanes disc was found to be the best solution.

Aim of this paper is to setup a novel procedure able to analyze performances of a reverse shoulder prosthesis when different geometrical configurations are assumed. Nowadays, such a prosthesis is widely used but, because of its novelty, data in literature give poor information about performances and limits to its applicability. The activity has been divided into the following steps. At the beginning the shape of the prosthesis has been digitally acquired via a 3D scanner. Then, CAD models of all prosthetic components have been geometrically optimized in a way to obtain final entities suitable for numerical simulations. After that, CAD assemblies have been created between prosthetic components and bones (humerus and scapula) involved in the shoulder joint. Following step has been the setup of numerical finite element method models to simulate use conditions. To this scope, analyses have been performed in accordance with experimental conditions found in literature. Stability conditions have been verified under the action of horizontal and vertical instability loads with different version angles between humerus and the humeral implant. In particular, the stability ratios of the prosthesis have been calculated for the analysed loading conditions. Obtained results show how the positioning has a great influence on the shoulder stability and allow the definition of guidelines for the application of this prosthesis.

The aim of this work is the analysis of the contact area in a knee prosthesis using two different approaches. In particular, the interface between the femoral component and the polyethylene insert has been studied both numerically and experimentally. The interest in studying the contact area is related to the fact that the wear of the polyethylene insert, due to the high contact pressures, represents one of the major causes of failure of the total knee prosthesis. The possibility to evaluate the contact area at different loads and mutual position between femur and tibia is, therefore, of fundamental importance to study the service life of a prosthesis and to improve its performance. The finite element numerical approach has required the acquisition, through reverse engineering, and CAD modelling of the prosthetic components. Then the FEM simulations have been developed considering two different load conditions. In order to compare the calculated data, the same load configurations have been used for experimental tests based on ultrasonic method. In this case, some preliminary tests were required to calibrate the system depending on the particular characteristics of materials, geometries and surface finish of the prosthesis. The results show a good correlation between the data obtained with the two different approaches and, consequently, a good level of reliability of the procedures developed for the numerical and experimental evaluation of the contact area. The numerical procedure can be used to determine the area for different angles and loads, but especially in the design phase. The ultrasonic technique can be used to validate the numerical data.

Aim of this work is to compare two different total knee prostheses that differ mainly in the shape of the polyethylene (PE) component inserted between the femoral and tibial plates. The best solution between them has been originally reshaped in order to reduce stress peaks. The study procedure has been divided into the following steps. First step is the digitalisation of the shape of the prostheses by means of a 3D laser scanner. The morphology of two prototypes of the prostheses has been acquired by elaborating multiple Moire fringe patterns projected on their surfaces. Second step consisted on the manipulation of these data in a CAD module, that is the interpolation of raw data into NURBS surfaces, reducing singularities due to the typical scattering of the acquiring system. Third step has been the setting up of FEM simulations to evaluate the prostheses behaviour under benchmark loading conditions given in literature. The CAD model of the prostheses has been meshed into solid finite elements. Different flexion angles configurations have been analysed, the load being applied along the femoral axis. FEM analyses have returned stress fields in the PE insert and, in particular, in the stabilizing cam which function is to avoid dislocation. Last step has been the integrated use of CAD and FEM to modify the shape of the stabilizing cam of the best prosthesis, in order to reduce the stress peaks in the original prosthesis without affecting kinematics of the joint. Good results have been obtained both in terms of stress and contact pressure peaks reduction.