• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.312-319
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to develop a customized wrist brace using 3D scanner and 3D printer. This study included in-depth interviews with people who had wrist pain and ever used wrist braces. The wrist brace has been designed and modeled by the CAD program after 3D scanning the wrist of subjects. Based on the results of the in-depth interviews on wrist brace users and design investigation in the market, a prototype of the wrist brace has been created. The wrist brace does not compress the hand and is easy to put on. In addition, it is adjustable to the wrist of users, allowing them to move his or her wrist without any restrictions. A computer-modeling program produced solid files for the design of the wrist brace after 3D scanning ten subjects' hands. It features a lattice-patterned surface, a velcro adjustment and trimming to smoothen the surface. PLA filaments were used to 3D print the wrist brace. As for the assessment, the wrist brace has been evaluated to be easy to put on and adjust to user's wrist. However, when it comes to appearance and comfortability, it was rated 3.0 or slightly above. This is because 3D printing materials are firm and not flexible compared to other materials such as neoprene or stretchable bands.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.947-953
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to manufacture a wrist brace using a computerized tomography system, clinical design software (MediACE 3D Program), and 3D printer. After acquiring the Dicom file of the upper limb with a computed tomography, the wrist brace was designed using the MediACE 3D Program to create a "stereolithography" file. The designed wrist brace was printed using a 3D printer. To verify the effectiveness of wrist assistive device manufactured by 3D printing technology, the stress distribution of the pressure and orthosis applied to bone and skin is represented by finite element analysis. It is expected that the wrist brace can be manufactured by reinforcing the part where the damage caused by pressure and breakage of the brace frequently occurs with the result of finite element analysis when producing the wrist brace.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.585-590
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• 2021

Wrist braces are being used for patients with wrist trauma. Recently, many studies have been conducted to manufacture custom wrist braces using 3D printing technology. Such 3D printing customized orthosis has the advantage of reflecting various factors such as reflecting different shapes for each individual and securing breathability. In this paper, the stress on the orthosis by the number and position of Velcro bands that should be considered when manufacturing a 3D printing custom wrist brace was analyzed. For customized orthosis, 3D modeling of the bone and skin regions was performed using an automatic design software (Reconeasy 3D, Seeann Solution) based on CT images. Based on the 3D skin area, a wrist orthosis design was applied to suit each treatment purpose. And, for the elasticity of the brace, a wrist brace was manufactured with an FDM-type 3D printer using TPU material. To evaluate the effectiveness according to the number and position of the Velcro band of the custom 3D printed wrist brace, the stress distribution of the brace was analyzed by the finite element method (FEM). Through the finite element analysis of the wrist orthosis performed in this study, the stress distribution of the orthosis was confirmed, and the number and position of the orthosis production and Velcro bands could be confirmed. These experimental results will help provide quality treatment to patients.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.1074-1087
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• 2022

This study reports an optimization of a 3D printed wrist brace (WB) for various tilting angles (0°, 45°, 90°) of the re-entrant (RE) pattern and thickness (2 mm, 4 mm) using thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) filaments and thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) filaments. The actual printing time, weight, Poisson's ratio, and tensile property of the manufactured samples were analyzed. The results confirmed that the actual printing time and weight increased with increasing thickness, regardless of the filament type. All tilting angles of the WB showed a negative Poisson's ratio (NPR), the largest of which appeared at 90°. The results of the tensile property analysis showed that a 90° tilting angle also had the largest value of elongation and stress. From these results, we conclude that the most suitable wrist brace is one in which the actual printing time is low, the weight is minimized to a thickness of 2 mm, and the tilting angle of the RE pattern is 90° for good shock absorption. The choice of filaments may be decided upon according to the user's preference, since the TPU is stiff and the TPE is elastic.