The Flex-Foot Cheetah is a

prosthetic In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

human foot replacement developed by

biomedical engineer Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

Van Phillips, who had lost a leg below the knee at age 21; the deficiencies of existing prostheses led him to invent this new prosthesis. The Flex-Foot Cheetah and similar models are worn by

Oscar Pistorius Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African convicted murderer and former professional sprinter. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old owing to a congenital defect; he was born missing the o ...

and other amputee athletes in the

Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...

and elsewhere. It is made from

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

, and unlike all previous foot prostheses, it stores kinetic energy from the wearer's steps as potential energy, like a spring, allowing the wearer to run and jump. It is now (as of September 2012) made by

Össur Össur hf. is a company based in Iceland that develops, manufactures and sells non-invasive equipment for orthopaedics, including bracing and support products, compression therapy, and prosthetics. The company is headquartered in Reykjavík, wit ...

. Carbon fibre is actually a carbon-fiber-reinforced

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

, and is a strong, light-weight material used in a number of applications, including sporting goods like baseball bats, car parts, helmets, sailboats, bicycles and other equipment where rigidity and high strength-to-weight ratio is important. The polymer used for this equipment is normally

epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...

, but other polymers are also used, depending on the application, and other reinforcing fibers may also be included. In the blade manufacturing process, sheets of impregnated material are cut into square sheets and pressed onto a form to produce the final shape. From 30 to 90 sheets may be layered, depending on the expected weight of the athlete, and the mold is then autoclaved to fuse the sheets into a solid plate. This method reduces air bubbles that can cause breaks. Once the result is cooled, it is cut into the shape of the blades, each of which costs between $15,000 and $18,000. About 90 percent of amputee Paralympics runners use a variation of the original Flex-Foot design, as well as thousands of athletes around the world. "Bladerunners" seen at the Paralympics who have lost both feet run in the T43 class, but runners with one blade and a natural foot run in the T44 class.

In popular culture

*In the 2015 film '' Kingsman: The Secret Service'', one of the villains, Gazelle, is seen wearing a pair of

blade A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Historic ...

d Flex-Foot Cheetah. *In ''

Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half-Life 2'' combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and ...

'' and the subsequent episodes, Dr.

Eli Vance This is a list of characters in the ''Half-Life'' video game series, which comprises ''Half-Life'', ''Half-Life 2'', ''Half-Life: Alyx'', and their respective expansion packs and episodes. Introduced in ''Half-Life'' and expansion packs This sec ...

has a Flex-Foot Cheetah prosthetic. * In the second season of ''

Alice in Borderland is a Japanese suspense manga series written and illustrated by Haro Aso. It was first serialized in Shogakukan's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''Shōnen Sunday S'' from November 2010 to March 2015, and later moved to ''Weekly Shōnen Sunda ...

'', the character Akane Heiya uses a Flex-Foot Cheetah after having her leg amputated.

References

External links

Manufacturer's description
Prosthetics {{sport-equipment-stub

In popular culture

See also

References

External links