Engineering Commons^™

Prosthetic Thermal Management Device, Garrett Dowd

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

High temperatures in lower-limb prosthetics can lead to poor user skin conditions and mechanical slippage between the user’s limb and the prosthetic. This report presents an air-cooling device for a lower-limb prosthesis. This device’s purpose is to maintain a constant skin-prosthesis interface temperature. A compact heat sink and small fan were used to transfer the bio-heat to the ambient surroundings. By changing the power of the fan, the thermal resistance of the whole system can be adjusted to match various thermal loads and environmental temperatures. Heat pads were used to mimic the heat generation of a residual limb, and cooling …