Simulation and experimental investigation of active lightweight compliant mechanisms with integrated piezoceramic actuators

Abstract

Compliant mechanisms with integrated actuators can enable new function-integrative structures through the elastic deformation of elements without the use of classical links and joints. For such designs, the mechanical behaviour of the mechanism has to be well known, because external loads, the utilised materials and the geometry of the structural parts influence the deformation performance significantly. In order to speed up the development process of such mechanisms, a tool for the dynamic analysis of compliant movements is necessary before any further FEM simulation and manufacturing. Therefore, the paper presents a simulating procedure for active compliant mechanisms obtained through the integration of piezoceramic actuators into fibre-reinforced composite structures using a double layer model. A new mechanism was designed, simulated, constructed and tested. The comparison between simulation and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the presented procedure in regard to the design phase of new active compliant structures.