Capstone Project

     This project was completed for the Senior Design Capstone course where our assigned groups were given an industry sponsor to work with. Our sponsor, Dr. Mark Miller, director of the Biomechanics Research Laboratory at Allegheny General Hospital, tasked our group with redesigning their current elbow ligament testing fixture. This course required us to use the skills we had accumulated in our academic careers to work within a group of fellow engineers and fulfill the needs of our sponsor. For this project I took the role of Resource Manager, where I was in charge of communicating with the machine shop in production and design of our fixture and the finding and ordering our materials. I was also heavily involved in the preliminary designs and design iterations of our project.

      The goal of this project was to redesign the current test fixture used for analyzing the strain along the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) when an upwards tensile load is applied at varying flexion angles. This redesigned and improved test fixture minimized the camera field of view and maintained a consistent level of measurement accuracy of the marker motion data during testing. This new fixture allows for better overall data and more efficient testing which will benefit the creation of a comprehensive fatigue life curve to determine when an elbow is at risk of failing. The research conducted using this fixture will impact the lives of professional baseball players and medical personnel. If you are interested in learning more about the project please see below to view the project binder which gives a comprehensive view of our project process and the project poster.