Multimedia

FEA of a Later Design of the Anchor (Design 7)

LEFT: Resulting stress profile under pre-deployment forces

MIDDLE: Resulting stress profile while anchor is in mid-deployment

RIGHT: Resulting stress profile while anchor is fully deployed

LEFT: The first manufactured anchor out of titanium. 

MIDDLE: The first manufactured anchor, lined up with a short inserter. Enlarged via microscope.

RIGHT: The first manufactured anchor, fully deployed. Enlarged via microscope.

LEFT: an updated prototype of the anchor assembly, and also the first occurrence of an inserter tip. 

RIGHT: The resulting profile of an anchor being pulled out of a jello deployment test.

LEFT: image of the 3D printed anchor prototype, 10x scale. suture is threaded through the holes in the design.

RIGHT: Anchor prototype being deployed in a PDMS solution. Note the air-gaps between the inserter and the anchor's wings.

This is the CAD of the anchor (LEFT: solid, RIGHT: transparent), which was then fabricated on a high-resolution printer for testing. 

The flexure hinge feature was first introduced in a 10x scale for testing. 

The first preliminary tests were to gauge the strength of various objects in a medium similar to bone, i.e. Styrofoam.

The first specimens were 3D-printed under a scale several times larger than the intended final product. 

Testing was conducted by adding weight on a spring gauge to determine their pull-out strengths.

The thesis that this project is built on shows the first concept of the anchor, with the wings deploying through the bone by the suture pulled through them.