Composite materials used in the prosthetic and orthotic fields have helped improve the fabrication of sockets. Laminated sockets proved to be stronger than conventional thermoplastic sockets. The internal surface of a laminated socket plays an important role in patient comfort and is influenced by the material used to fabricate the socket. This study analyzes the internal surface profile of five different materials, that is, Dacron felt, fiberglass, Perlon stockinette, polyester stockinette, and elastic stockinette. All sockets were fabricated using an acrylic resin mix with hardener powder at a ratio of 100:3. The internal surface of the sockets was tested using the Mitutoyo SurfTest SJ-210 series for 20 trials. The overall Ra values were 2.318, 2.380, 2.682, 2.722, and 3.750 µm for fiberglass, polyester, Perlon, elastic stockinette, and Dacron felt. Dacron felt yielded the lowest Ra value, thus, producing the smoothest internal surface but requiring high skill and the correct technique during the fabrication of a laminated socket. Fiberglass is considered the best material for the internal surface despite not producing the lowest value individually but overall is the lowest and most consistent, indicating that it is easy to use to laminate prosthetic sockets.
In this paper, we report the effects of a side-polished fiber (SPF) coated with titanium (Ti) films in different thicknesses, namely 5 nm, 13 nm, and 36 nm, protected by a thin layer of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and tungsten disulfide (WS2), which provide ultra-sensitive sensor-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) covering from the visible to mid-infrared region. The SPF deposited with Ti exhibits strong evanescent field interaction with the MoS2 and WS2, and good optical absorption, hence resulting in high-sensitivity performance. Incremental increases in the thickness of the Ti layer contribute to the enhancement of the intensity of transmission with redshift and broad spectra. The findings show that the optimum thickness of Ti with 36 nm combined with MoS2 causes weak redshifts of the longitudinal localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode, while the same thickness of Ti with WS2 causes large blueshifts. The redshifts are possibly due to a reduced plasmon-coupling effect with the excitonic region of MoS2. The observed blueshifts of the LSPR peak position are possibly due to surface modification between WS2 and Ti. Changing the relative humidity from 58% to 88% only elicited a response in Ti/MoS2. Thus, MoS2 shows more sensitivity on 36-nm thickness of Ti compared with WS2. Therefore, the proposed fiber-optic sensor with integration of 2D materials is capable of measuring humidity in any environment.