APPLICATION OF COMPUTATIONAL MODELING AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW WHEELCHAIR SEAT-BACK SYSTEMS TO IMPROVE POSTURAL ADEQUACY OF CHILDREN WITH MOTOR DISABILITIES

Resumo

One of the most compromised abilities in individuals who have neuromotor dysfunction is posture,
requiring that most of them need to use some type of Assistive Technology equipment, for instance a wheelchair.
This disorder can interfere with the insertion of the individual into society and impact his or her quality of life.
The present work intends to develop low-cost seat-back systems focused on the children population with some
kind of motor disability in the context of postural adequacy, and the numeric tools were used to give support for
the development of new technologies. The thermography technique was used to create maps according to specific
deformities of every child volunteer in this project. The temperature maps were converted into pressure maps and
implemented as input data to perform numerical simulations in the Finite Element software COMSOL
Multiphysics®. The computational analysis of different geometry cuts of polyester foams and their strategic
positioning on the seat-back systems are also being studied to provide better distribution of the child body pressure
on the system. Simulations show the potential of using octagon shapes of several foam densities to accommodate
the deformations and to decrease the stress concentrations in the system.