Pneumatic Muscles Help The Research Of The Vest

Those who suffer from the lumbar disc herniation(LDH)or waist injuries have lower load capacity compared with normal.LDH will cause pain and damage to the disc and brings great inconvenience to the patient's life and work.The waistbands in the market can only tighten the waist muscles,restrict lumbar activities and assist the balance support of lumbar vertebrae,but cannot help patients partially recover the load capacity and is unable to be worn for a long time.Therefore,it is of urgent need and practical significance to design an auxiliary device to help patients partially recover the load capacity on the basis of stable status.In view of the actual needs,we developed a portable pneumatic muscle vest that can help people who suffer from the lumbar disc herniation or waist injuries to reduce vertebral pressure and enable patients partially recover the load capacity.The main research work of the project includes:(1)The theory of body waist bearing is analyzed and the overall technical demand of pneumatic auxiliary vest is put forward.According to the technical demand,the overall structure of the pneumatic auxiliary vest is designed.A force transfer mechanism based on wire rope is designed to transfer force from the pneumatic muscle.A manual inflatable power source is used and a unit for quickly inflated and exhausted is designed.The pneumatic auxiliary vest can support load and it has the advantages of light weight,flexibility,easily wearing and easily being inflated.(2)The technical requirements of pneumatic muscles is analyzed according to the overall requirement of pneumatic auxiliary vest.A new type of bellows lining slip pipe pneumatic muscle as the support unit of the pneumatic auxiliary vest is designed.The output characteristics of the pneumatic muscles are analyzed theoretically and further simulated.A test platform is built to measure the output characteristics of the pneumatic muscle.The results obtained from the experiment are compared with the simulation results which show that the theoretical output is basically consistent with the experiment data.The limit inflation pressure and inflation holding ability of pneumatic muscle are tested through experiments.When the inflation pressure is less than 0.2MPa,the pneumatic muscle is in a state of non-destructive safety and can maintain stable air pressure for a long time.(3)The prototype of pneumatic auxiliary vest is manufactured.The overall supporting ability of the pneumatic auxiliary vest is calculated theoretically based on the output characteristics of pneumatic muscle.Loading test platform is established to measure the overall supporting capacity.The results show that patients who wear the auxiliary vest can recover the weight bearing capacity of 12.9kg and the theoretical and experimental results are basically consistent when compared.The activity range of the lumbar spine is measured when the pneumatic auxiliary vest is worn,the result showed that there is little influence on the lumbar activity when wearing pneumatic auxiliary vest.Pneumatic auxiliary vest based on the new pneumatic muscle has the characteristics of flexibility and portability which can effectively bear part load of the spine,and achieve the purpose of research.The prospected vest valued further research and application.