Abstract
Compliant mechanisms are widely used in cutting-edge scientific and technological fields such as precision engineering, micro-/nano-manipulation, or microelectronics. Hence, the demand for multi-degree-of-freedom compliant mechanisms has increased sharply. The structure of compliant mechanisms becomes increasingly complex with the increase of degrees of freedom. Here, a compliant mechanism with six degrees of freedom is proposed based on curved beams. The compliant mechanism has the advantages of simple structure and multi-degree-of-freedom. Using the isogeometric analysis method, a model of the mechanism is constructed. Static analysis show that six degrees of freedom can be generated. The prototype of the mechanism is developed by 3D printing. A loading test in six degrees of freedom is carried out. The output and input have high linear relations and the structure has low inter-directional coupling. We trust that this study provides a pioneering step towards the design of compliant mechanisms based on curved beam elements.
Highlights
Due to advantages such as no requirement for lubrication, no backlash, and less assembly [1,2,3,4,5], compliant mechanisms are widely used in the fields of precision processing, biological cell manipulation, microelectronics and micro-/nano-manipulation [6,7,8,9,10]
The simple structure and multi degrees of freedom always conflict with each other for the compliant mechanism based on flexible hinges or compliant straight beams
A curved beam compliant mechanism has a certain contribution to solve this contradiction, but the existing curved beam compliant mechanism is only limited to cylindrical geometry, and the modeling method is only limited to a circular arc curved beam
Summary
Due to advantages such as no requirement for lubrication, no backlash, and less assembly [1,2,3,4,5], compliant mechanisms are widely used in the fields of precision processing, biological cell manipulation, microelectronics and micro-/nano-manipulation [6,7,8,9,10]. Hopkins [14,15] presented the freedom and constraint topology method and a variety of multi degrees of freedom complex compliant mechanisms have been designed. Yu [20] applied freedom and constraint topology to design a compliant parallel mechanism with two rotational degrees of freedom, which meets the requirement of a lightweight and compact pan-tilt platform. The simple structure and multi degrees of freedom always conflict with each other for the compliant mechanism based on flexible hinges or compliant straight beams. (ii) Isogeometric analysis is utilized to model the compliant mechanism based on curved beam elements. Application of isogeometric analysis solves the problem of modeling the compliant mechanism based on a curved beam with an arbitrary shape
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