Elephant Hind Leg Concept

#1

http://www.asianelephantresearch.com/about-elephant-anatomy-and-biology-p2.php

I am thinking of a design concepts for foot prosthetic, and I fathom that the elephant hind leg is suitable for an investigation.

It is perpendicular to the hip, which is what happens with amputations above knee, the prosthetic is perpendicular to the upper leg bone.

For the fleshy hind pad we could simply use a small rubber ball, tiny basketball would do.

This allows a person to walk for long distances, but unable to move fast, it is a slow gait and no gallop nor running feasible.

It is a scary horrible looking design but I suspect it could be worked into an efficient leg with least wear and tear.

I was thinking about this leg for the countries where the people have mostly dirt roads. The Western walker has nice time on the good roads, but in most other regions of the world dirt roads are what people trek though.

Also was thinking it is going to be much easier design to fabricate.

#2

hi @dara, i think is a good point of thinking, maybe some designer here can start to think about it!

#3

Hello Sir

Thank you for consideration. I am going to plan a simulator for such unusual design, I need to understand how to model the forces and torques and etc. for each design.

Generally speaking I am looking for designs that hardy for rough outdoors environments to be globally useful.

#4

I think for designing a foot prosthetic for a human being, their needs to be an arch created. Take advantage of Hooke’s Law. The arches in our foot have the ability to absorb shock, that is if they are able to collapse, as is in normal human beings. As far as allowing someone to go fast, what you can do is design the foot as a stiff lever. You can increase speed and gallop by the use of elastic bands. Set up a system so that you can recycle energy and use gravity. One final idea I have for increasing speed and gallop is to decrease the surface area where the foot will contact the ground and have all the force generated be concentrated at one point.

#5

Good point.

When an amputation occurs, even even if a part of a toe, the person limps!

The foot leg hip system is integral i.e. if you cut even a tiny piece the entire ensemble does not function as before.

There are vast and complex systems in the shin and ankle that make the arch work as you had indicated. But if they are amputed, in part or full the systems fail.

Why I was thinking of the elephant foot:

  1. It supports a huge weight for a gait that is simplified, but effective. So the elephant cannot do many things we are able to do with our feet, but can carry the weight at varying speeds

  2. Rough surface handling. Human foot is not suitable for rough surfaces. That is why we have invented shoes and at that hiking boots with hard sole.

Human feet are designed for maneuvers in tight spots suitable for foraging handling small spaces. Its primary design consideration is minimizing the gait energetics. In other words human being can walk much larger distances with much less food intake.

To go from 4 pedals to 2 was because of the energetics required for a new anatomical design.

But with amputation all that design consideration is lost. I tend towards an ugly hideous design for a foot that allows the walker to gait on rubble and tricky surfaces carrying a large person with ease.

#6

A shorter version:

Human foot/leg system optimized for energetics. It is not powerful for galloping nor sturdy for climbing, nor dexterous for hanging.

But with small amount of food the said system operates amazingly for large distances and creative manuvers.

If amputation occurs then prosthetics has to be designed and optimized for non-energetics in order to give the patient maximum motility. Foot/leg system should look drastically different.