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Author
Hernández Gómez, Marta
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Abstract
The Evans osteotomy is a surgical procedure for calcaneal lengthening, done by introducing a wedge, used to solve various medical problems such as flatfoot.
This work aims to contribute to help the medical staff who conduct this surgical procedure. Using industrial engineering knowledge and by means of modelling software, the foot and the introduced wedge are evaluated.
The prefabricated wedges used nowadays in these surgeries are sought to be improved regarding their material and structure. For this purpose, new wedge configurations with gyroid structure infill are proposed, attempting to imitate bone trabecular structure and to favour the wedge’s osteointe-gration.
A biomechanical analysis is carried out to evaluate each of the proposed wedges. To do so, a simplified foot model, which only includes its bone components, is developed.
The nTopology software turns out to be a valid tool for representing human body geometries. The finite element analysis predicts that the outer wall thickness of the wedge does not influence the tensions it upholds, unlike the thickness of the lattice wall, that if modified, significant changes can be observed.
Keywords: foot biomechanics; Evans osteotomy; Mosca osteotomy; calcaneum; finite element; wedge; gyroid structure; foot modelling; Topology; computational simulation
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