1. Expandable Wheelchair Final Report
Sponsor:
Industry Advisor:
Facility Advisor:
Team:
Keen Mobility
Rick Klein
Faryar Etesami
Meagan Pischel
Robb Sparks
Joshua Hatch
Aleksey Synkov
Spring, 2005
PSU / Keen Mobility
PSU / Keen Mobility

2. Mission Statement
Develop a low-cost manual wheelchair with adjustable width and depth for skilled care facilities.
PSU / Keen Mobility

3. Need for Expandable Wheelchair
Reduce size of chair fleet in nursing homes
Reduce wide (20”) chair rentals
Free up Medicare money for other patient needs
Provide a better fitting chair to patients
PSU / Keen Mobility

4. Main Design Objectives
Adjust width 16” to 20”
Increase chair capacity to 300 lbs
Allow quick, tool free adjustment
Adjust depth 16” to 18”
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5. Additional Requirements
Allow use of normal doorways
Ability to fold instantly
Standard service life
Easy maintenance
Manageable chair weight
Safety
Reliability
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6. Final Design Standard Adult Wheelchair Folded
pinned
attached
Crossbar design allows wheelchair to fold
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7. Final Design Double Crossbar for added weight capacity Width Adjust
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8. Final Design Handle Re-designed for Depth Adjustment Original Design
Sliding
Fixed
Original Design
Re-design
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9. Analysis F Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for Handle
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10. Analysis FEA Result Yield Strength = 57 kpsi max. stress = 30 kpsi
FOS = 1.9
Safe for designed load
max
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11. Testing Broken into quantitative and qualitative characteristics
Width and depth adjustability meet project requirements
Width adjusts in less than 3 minutes, depth in less than 1 minute
Chair still folds easily
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12. Patenting Grant funds available for patenting
Draft patent application sent to lawyer
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13. Conclusions and Recommendations
The wheelchair meets all main design objectives and the majority of other PDS requirements
Only aesthetics need serious help
Some areas for refinement were identified
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14. Special Thanks Rick, Jerry, Brandon and entire Keen Mobility Team
Professor Etesami
Vancouver Skilled Care Facility nurses and staff
PSU / Keen Mobility