Investigation of Metatarsal Fracture for Protective Footwear Design

跖骨（脚的顶部）受伤在工业环境中很常见。大多数受伤是由于 ** 由于重物落在脚上造成的冲击，或由于脚被叉车等工业车辆 ** 压碎。正在设计保护鞋，以保护跖骨免受此类伤害。全世界每年销售约20万个跖骨保护器，其中约25%由位于滑铁卢的Swenco公司生产。然而，**Swenco目前生产的跖骨保护器在设计上没有提供实际保护的信息。他们的设计要求 ** 纯粹基于ASTM标准，并不反映实际的伤害情况。例如，不知道 ** 需要多少冲击能量来使跖骨骨折。没有这些信息，Swenco无法设计跖骨保护器来提供足够的保护。本项目的目标是研究在冲击和挤压载荷情况下跖骨骨折所需的能量。将测试16只新鲜冷冻尸体足; 8只在冲击载荷下，8只在准静态载荷下。将使用配备工具的 ** 定制测试装置在尸体足顶部施加准静态压缩载荷，并确定跖骨骨折所需的 ** 最小力。X线片将用于确定跖骨骨折。将使用改进的摆动摆锤冲击试验机以不同的 ** 冲击能量冲击脚，使用扁杆作为压头。使用这种方法，将生成将 ** 跖骨骨折风险与冲击能量关联的损伤风险曲线。**从测试中收集的信息将是非常有价值的工业合作伙伴设计净一代 ** 跖骨保护器，这是基于实验数据。这样的跖骨被期望设计为最佳跖骨保护。这将有助于该公司更好地销售他们的产品，从而为加拿大带来经济利益。

Injuries to metatarsals (top part of the foot) are common in industrial settings. Most of the injuries are due to**impact caused due to heavy weight falling on the foot, or due to foot being crushed under industrial vehicles**such as forklifts. Protective footwear are being designed to protect the metatarsals from such injury.**About 200,000 metatarsal protectors are being sold every year throughout the world and about 25% of these are**produced by Swenco, a Waterloo based company. However, the metatarsal protectors currently produced by**Swenco are designed with no information on actual protection they need to offer. Their design requirement is**purely based on ASTM standards that do not reflect the actual injury scenario. For example, it is not known**how much impact energy is needed to fracture the metatarsals. Without such information, Swenco cannot**design metatarsal protectors to offer sufficient protection. The goal of this project is to investigate the energy**needed to fracture metatarsal bones under impact and crush loading scenarios.**Sixteen fresh frozen cadaver feet will be tested; 8 in impact and 8 under quasistatic loading. A instrumented**custom test apparatus will be used to apply quasi-static compressive loading on top of cadaver foot and**minimal force needed for metatarsal fractures will be determined. Radiographs will be used to ascertain the**metatarsal fractures. A modified swing pendulum impact tester will be used to impact the feet at different**impact energies using flat bar as an indenter. Using this approach an injury risk curve that relates the risk of**metatarsal fracture to impact energy will be generated.**The information gathered from the tests will be very valuable for the industrial partner to design net generation**metatarsal protectors which are based on the experimental data. Such metatarsals are expected to be designed**for optimal metatarsal protection. This will help the company to market their product better resulting economic**benefit to Canada.