Luke Prudhoe

Intervertebral Disc Replacement 180391730

Dr Ana Ferreira-Duarte
07/05/2021

using Origami Structures

School of Engineering: MEC3098

Introduction Model of
Origami
Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the most common artificial IVD
reported injuries in industrialized nations [1], being
deployed into
current treatments including lumbar fusion and position
total disc replacement (TDR) have not shown
long term success [2].
Investigate the potential use of origami structures
Aim: in TDR

Research
Origami tessellations are extremely light yet still
material and can be developed int meta- Herringbone
materials [3]. The Miura Fold is already Tessellation,
constructed
commonly used in engineering, specifically for from paper,
the folding of solar panels for satellites. shown in
both
Origami Structure Testing positions,
The Miura-Ori (and its variation, the showing how
Herringbone fold), Waterbomb Base, small the fold
can go
Yoshimura, and all have engineering potential
and were researched, with further study being
given to the Miura-Ori and Waterbomb Base. Crease lines
Results and Discussion for the
Herringbone
The Herringbone Tessellation was chosen as it Tessellation
showed the best properties for our application, sketched in
CAD, to be
being an auxetic design; having a negative folded like
Poisson’s ratio for its geometric parameters, the paper
which results in contraction perpendicular to model above.
the applied force during compression, acting as
shock absorption, perfect for an IVD
Conclusion References
This project has shown the versatility of [1] A. K. Burton et al., “Chapter 2: European guidelines for prevention in low back pain November 2004,” European Spine
Journal, vol. 15, no. SUPPL. 2. Mar. 2006, doi: 10.1007/s00586-006-1070-3.
origami structures in engineering, however, [2] G. Denozière and D. N. Ku, “Biomechanical comparison between fusion of two vertebrae and implantation of an artificial
intervertebral disc,” Journal of Biomechanics, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 766–775, 2006, doi:
much more research is still needed before they https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2004.07.039.
[3] S. Janbaz, N. Noordzij, D. S. Widyaratih, C. W. Hagen, L. E. Fratila-Apachitei, and A. A. Zadpoor, “Origami lattices with
could be applied to artificial IVDs. free-form surface ornaments,” Science Advances, vol. 3, no. 11, p. eaao1595, Nov. 2017, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aao1595.