Abstract
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common type of arthritis. It is reported that about 30% of Japanese over 60 years old suffer osteoarthritis of the knee, and a lot of them need knee braces or supporters in daily life. A new type supporter, which is called rotating shaft type supporter, is invented for this disease. In this study, the optimal design of the frame of this type supporter is investigated. The design objective is to create holes in the design domain (i.e. create new sewing lines along the curve of holes) so that the frame can be fixed to the flexible cloth cover strongly and stably. It can also reduce the weight of the supporter, and improve the air permeability. Since it is important to guarantee the enough stiffness in load direction, a topology optimization approach is applied for the optimization analysis.
