Topological design of compliant orthogonal displacement amplification mechanism under the unidirectional input force

Abstract

The orthogonal displacement amplification mechanism is used to output and amplify the displacement perpendicular to the direction of the input force, and its configuration often uses a typical bridge-type. However, the bridge-type amplifier to achieve orthogonal shift conversion must enter the bidirectional symmetric input forces, otherwise the output will produce parasitic displacement. In view of this problem, the topology optimization method is used to find the new configuration of the displacement amplification mechanism, so that it can still realize the orthogonal displacement transformation under the unidirectional input force condition. Based on the solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) topological description method, the ratio of output and input displacements is maximized as the objective function, the ratio of parasitic displacement and output displacement as one of constraint functions, and the topological optimization mathematical model of the compliant orthogonal displacement amplifier is established under the unidirectional input force. The sensitivity information of the objective and constraint functions is deduced by the adjoint matrix method, and the optimization problem is solved by the method of moving asymptotes (MMA). The topology optimization results of orthogonal displacement amplifier are given through numerical examples, and the effect of spring stiffness on the topology optimization result is also discussed. Finally, the parasitic motions of the displacement amplification mechanism obtained from topology optimization and the bridge-type amplification mechanism are compared through the finite element analysis and experiment. Finite element simulation and experiment confirm the correctness and validity of the proposed method.