Método de captura de esforços axiais para membro anterior como avaliador de confiabilidade do animal na utilização de próteses

Abstract

Amputation is indicated for the treatment of neoplasms or in cases of irreversible lesions that do not respond to drug therapy and that harm animal welfare. Engineering comes to help the daily lives of these animals, developing prostheses, facilitating and/or helping them to move around. However, currently, the market for prostheses for animals is still little explored in relation to the effectiveness of its use, since it is very difficult to receive feedback from the patient, and costs also influence it. The objective of this work is to propose a method for capturing axial forces in forelimbs, with the opportunity to assess the animal's reliability in the process of using the prosthesis. For this, it was determined the use of a resistive force sensor (FSR) to estimate the force applied to it, in the way that the FSR changes its resistance according to the pressure exerted on it. To read the sensor, it was proposed to use two different formats for applying force on it, a tip in the shape of a pin and the other in a spherical pattern. For this load execution, the method of standard weights was used, seeking to verify the curves generated for each tip and their comparison with the curve of the actual weight (PR) applied. The result obtained was that, for this application with FSR, the pin-type concept must be used, which exerts a distributed force on the sensor and originating a curve very similar to the PR in question due to the fact that the applied load is distributed over the sensor and in the spherical model there is a very large deformation in the FSR, generating very relevant errors. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]