Inverse design techniques for improving composite prosthetic devices

The design and performance of composite prosthetic devices can be improved by tailoring the material properties to achieve a prescribed response. An example of such a response would be displacements and stresses exhibited by healthy, undisturbed femoral bone. In this paper, an inverse design methodology, used in the Volumetrically Controlled Manufacturing (VCM) process, is developed and tested for improving the design of orthopedic prosthetic devices. First, a three-dimensional finite element (FE) model is developed based on available Computed Tomography (CT) data. The FE model is used to evaluate the response of the model subjected to a typical load. Second, as a part of the VCM process, the inverse design process is used to formulate a design problem that is in the form of a constrained least-squares problem. The intent is to find the material properties of the FE model to obtain a known displacement field on the stem–cancellous interface. Third, a solution methodology is developed to solve this constrained least squares problem using the finite element analysis for function evaluations and a gradient-based nonlinear programming (NLP) method to solve the design problem. Two test problems are solved to illustrate the developed methodology. The results indicate that material properties can be tailored to meet specific response requirements.