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Article
Publication date: 25 October 2023

Lucia Regina and José Aguiomar Foggiatto

Breast cancer is the most diagnosed type of cancer in the world, and mastectomies to remove tumors are still common. An external breast prosthesis (EBP) can be used to minimize…

Abstract

Purpose

Breast cancer is the most diagnosed type of cancer in the world, and mastectomies to remove tumors are still common. An external breast prosthesis (EBP) can be used to minimize the asymmetry, due to the ablation. Some governments do not cover costs of that assistive technology, and women end up using socks and fabric pockets filled with seeds, to simulate the volume lost in the surgery. This study aims to offer to those women a decent solution, ergonomic, but still affordable.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors interviewed 20 mastectomized Brazilian women, listened to their relate and 3D scanned them, to give rise to personalized external lightweight breast prostheses. The authors used free software for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, and low-cost 3D printers. From the strategy of bespoke products, this study generalized the method, to conceive mass customized prostheses, in a compromise solution that reduces personalization, conserving the best features of design.

Findings

This study achieved a method to manufacture ergonomic, bespoke external breast prostheses, using low-cost technology. Previous literature made them using expensive scanners, software and printers.

Research limitations/implications

The authors validated this method during pandemic, which restricted the number of patients the authors could have access to. This impacted authors’ possibility to work on matching the color of the final product and real skin. The authors understood, though, that precision of color, in the final product, is challenging, because of the peculiar aspects of human skin.

Originality/value

Using the method the authors proposed, personalized external breast prostheses can be manufactured using low-cost resources, democratizing better quality of life for more breast cancer survivors.

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2023

Rossana Fernandes, Benyang Hu, Zhichao Wang, Zheng Zhang and Ali Y. Tamijani

This paper aims to assess the feasibility of additively manufactured wind tunnel models. The additively manufactured model was used to validate a computational framework allowing…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to assess the feasibility of additively manufactured wind tunnel models. The additively manufactured model was used to validate a computational framework allowing the evaluation of the performance of five wing models.

Design/methodology/approach

An optimized fighter wing was additively manufactured and tested in a low-speed wind tunnel to obtain the aerodynamic coefficients and deflections at different speeds and angles of attack. The flexible wing model with optimized curvilinear spars and ribs was used to validate a finite element framework that was used to study the aeroelastic performance of five wing models. As a computationally efficient optimization method, homogenization-based topology optimization was used to generate four different lattice internal structures for the wing in this study. The efficiency of the spline-based optimization used for the spar-rib model and the lattice-based optimization used for the other four wings were compared.

Findings

The aerodynamic loads and displacements obtained experimentally and computationally were in good agreement, proving that additive manufacture can be used to create complex accurate models. The study also shows the efficiency of the homogenization-based topology optimization framework in generating designs with superior stiffness.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a wing model with curvilinear spars and ribs was additively manufactured as a single piece and tested in a wind tunnel. This research also demonstrates the efficiency of homogenization-based topology optimization in generating enhanced models of different complexity.

Details

Rapid Prototyping Journal, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2546

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