Seligson [1] describes how Hoffmann and Jaquet, a medical doctor and an engineer, respectively, developed the original Hoffmann fixator as a tool to stabilize human fractures with minimal invasiveness.
Whether being utilized in mass trauma injury situations such as the 2010 Haitian earthquake, within our emerging geriatric population, or in veterinary applications, external fixation is widely used [1–4]. In this investigation, a rod-to-wire coupling, shown in Fig. 1, and hereafter referred to as the R2W clamp, has been designed and validation tested for Stryker Orthopaedic's Hoffmann II (HII) External Fixation System. As the name implies, this clamp has the purpose of connecting 8 mm rods to 1.5 mm or 2 mm Kirschner (k-) wires or olive wires to stabilize bony fragments in the lower extremity, thus expediting healing in a trauma case. This paper summarizes the results of the validation tests...
