PREDICTION OF STRESS GENERATED AT INSOLE SUB-SYSTEM OF DIABETIC FOOT ULCER OFFLOADING DEVICE USING FULL FACTORIAL DOE

Abstract

Diabetes is one of the metabolic diseses.Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to diabetic foot ulcers and if it is not treated further it would lead to amputation. Foot ulcer patients are prescribed with Diabetic Foot Ulcer Offloading devices like walkers etc. by doctors. Here in this study we focus on developing an insole sub- system and predict the insole pressures using the full factorial DOE, in initial phase a 3-layer insole with different materials was modelled, and material combinations was to be found hence 3 different combinations were simulated and best stress reducing insole combination was selected as the insole. The control factors were selected and the datas were given to the statistical software Minitab, were 16 DOE’s were to be analysed, which was performed in Ansys. The insole combinations showed a stress reduction of about 43% with barefoot and the statistical software provide the effectiveness and interactions of the diiferent control factors on each outputs variations and the final regression equation predicted the outputs (stress) values of different control factors, which were validate again after cross verification