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25 April 2007
MOBILITY FOR EACH ONE
ABOUT THE DESIGN
“I spend most of my working time in the field of social design. In cooperation with organisations I design products for developing countries, trying to improve living conditions for different groups of people. During my senior year at university I developed a low-cost artificial foot targeted especially at developing countries.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people on earth living with an amputation. A large proportion of them are victims of landmines. The performance of a prosthesis can seriously influence the quality of life of an amputee. Unfortunately, high-quality prostheses with so-called ‘return of energy’ (propelling the walker forwards) are excessively expensive, ranging from $1,200 to $4,000. The innovation my product brings is that it costs less than $8 to produce.
“Prototypes have already been tested in Canada and Nicaragua with the help of Handicap International. The results have been impressive: patients can walk with the greatest ease and can even run, which would be unthinkable with a conventional artificial foot. I think that my design is a good example of how composite materials can also improve the quality of life for the disabled.”
Speaking about Mobility for Each One, jury member Ignaas Verpoest said: “Sébastien Dubois’ design is not absolutely original: top athletes in the Paralympics have used prostheses like these for many years, as have ordinary people who have had their lower leg amputated. The Flex-Foot® was developed almost 25 years ago by the American, Van Phillips, who needed a prosthesis himself after a water-skiing accident. He developed the Flex-Foot® with Dale Abildskov, a composites engineer in the aviation industry, where the then-new carbon fibre technology had been in use for only a few years.
“This high-tech prosthesis has since been further perfected to improve comfort and performance. Unfortunately enough it has proven very hard to come by for the people who have needed it most: the victims of landmines, particularly those in developing countries.
“It is for this reason that Sébastien Dubois has designed his prosthesis entirely with the needs of these people in mind. In the place of carbon fibre he uses glass fibre, and not simply because it is ten times cheaper. Glass fibre is less rigid but still almost as strong as carbon fibre, so it has a greater elongation at break. It is therefore more reliable, a significant advantage when used in difficult circumstances in remote areas. The designer has also got to grips with the production process: he opted for the simplest way of making composite products. The glass fibre is placed in a wooden mould, impregnated by hand, and put in a plastic bag from which the air is extracted during curing. These are all extremely simple operations, which can be carried by anyone with a little technical aptitude and which require only a small investment in production infrastructure. This means that the costs can be kept extremely low. Furthermore, production can be managed locally, by small communities in developing countries.
“Sébastien Dubois’s prosthesis is innovative in other aspects too. The flexibility and spring of the Flex-Foot® prosthesis can be regulated by varying the thickness, but this makes the production process much more complicated. In Dubois’ prosthesis, the upper section has a slightly curved cross section, through which suppleness can be optimised and less composite material is needed.
“Dubois’ prosthesis may be a little heavier than the Flex-Foot®, but it has the great advantage of being a lot cheaper, which brings it within reach of the hundreds of thousands of landmine victims in war zones and developing countries.”
Function: prosthetic foot
Dimensions: length 27 cm, height 27 cm, width 9 cm
Weight: 425 g
Materials: fibre glass, HDPE, rubber, glue
Techniques: fibre-glass laminated on a single mould wrapped in a vacuum bag, HDPE thermoforming
Award: Winner in the prototype category of the International Composites Design Competition 2006-2007
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Sébastien Dubois (born 1978)
130 Fafard
St-Cuthbert
J0K 2C0 Canada
t: +1 514 529 8010
e:
ABOUT THE AWARD
The International Composites Design Competition aims to award a prize to the product design considered to be the best example of an optimum application of composite materials.
Source: www.flandersdesign.be
“I spend most of my working time in the field of social design. In cooperation with organisations I design products for developing countries, trying to improve living conditions for different groups of people. During my senior year at university I developed a low-cost artificial foot targeted especially at developing countries.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people on earth living with an amputation. A large proportion of them are victims of landmines. The performance of a prosthesis can seriously influence the quality of life of an amputee. Unfortunately, high-quality prostheses with so-called ‘return of energy’ (propelling the walker forwards) are excessively expensive, ranging from $1,200 to $4,000. The innovation my product brings is that it costs less than $8 to produce.
“Prototypes have already been tested in Canada and Nicaragua with the help of Handicap International. The results have been impressive: patients can walk with the greatest ease and can even run, which would be unthinkable with a conventional artificial foot. I think that my design is a good example of how composite materials can also improve the quality of life for the disabled.”
Speaking about Mobility for Each One, jury member Ignaas Verpoest said: “Sébastien Dubois’ design is not absolutely original: top athletes in the Paralympics have used prostheses like these for many years, as have ordinary people who have had their lower leg amputated. The Flex-Foot® was developed almost 25 years ago by the American, Van Phillips, who needed a prosthesis himself after a water-skiing accident. He developed the Flex-Foot® with Dale Abildskov, a composites engineer in the aviation industry, where the then-new carbon fibre technology had been in use for only a few years.
“This high-tech prosthesis has since been further perfected to improve comfort and performance. Unfortunately enough it has proven very hard to come by for the people who have needed it most: the victims of landmines, particularly those in developing countries.
“It is for this reason that Sébastien Dubois has designed his prosthesis entirely with the needs of these people in mind. In the place of carbon fibre he uses glass fibre, and not simply because it is ten times cheaper. Glass fibre is less rigid but still almost as strong as carbon fibre, so it has a greater elongation at break. It is therefore more reliable, a significant advantage when used in difficult circumstances in remote areas. The designer has also got to grips with the production process: he opted for the simplest way of making composite products. The glass fibre is placed in a wooden mould, impregnated by hand, and put in a plastic bag from which the air is extracted during curing. These are all extremely simple operations, which can be carried by anyone with a little technical aptitude and which require only a small investment in production infrastructure. This means that the costs can be kept extremely low. Furthermore, production can be managed locally, by small communities in developing countries.
“Sébastien Dubois’s prosthesis is innovative in other aspects too. The flexibility and spring of the Flex-Foot® prosthesis can be regulated by varying the thickness, but this makes the production process much more complicated. In Dubois’ prosthesis, the upper section has a slightly curved cross section, through which suppleness can be optimised and less composite material is needed.
“Dubois’ prosthesis may be a little heavier than the Flex-Foot®, but it has the great advantage of being a lot cheaper, which brings it within reach of the hundreds of thousands of landmine victims in war zones and developing countries.”
Function: prosthetic foot
Dimensions: length 27 cm, height 27 cm, width 9 cm
Weight: 425 g
Materials: fibre glass, HDPE, rubber, glue
Techniques: fibre-glass laminated on a single mould wrapped in a vacuum bag, HDPE thermoforming
Award: Winner in the prototype category of the International Composites Design Competition 2006-2007
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Sébastien Dubois (born 1978)
130 Fafard
St-Cuthbert
J0K 2C0 Canada
t: +1 514 529 8010
e:
ABOUT THE AWARD
The International Composites Design Competition aims to award a prize to the product design considered to be the best example of an optimum application of composite materials.
Source: www.flandersdesign.be
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