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Mountaineer Undergraduate Research Review

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Despite continuous advancements in technology and safety procedures, hand injuries are still a significant problem in many industries. Metacarpal gloves are often used by workers to protect their hands against impacts, cuts, and other hazards. Importantly, testing the level of impact protection offered by different designs of metacarpal gloves cannot be done with living subjects. This limitation requires the use of a surrogate hand which can be used consistently and systematically in controlled impact tests. This work focuses on the development of a surrogate hand which can be manufactured and used for this purpose. The surrogate hand developed in this work is comprised of a bone structure and a flexible synthetic gel material, and the hand design is based on digital models obtained through laser scanning of bone and hand shapes. These digital models were scaled and assembled using a mesh editing software to generate a representative hand with the required size and posture. The resulting hand model was materialized with a 3D-printed bone structure surrounded by synthetic gel with shape, proportions, and flexibility resembling that of an actual hand.

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