Several methods have been developed to design compliant mechanisms. The significant demand of practical applications has also promoted the development of systematic design methods for compliant mechanisms. Therefore, compliant mechanisms are particularly suitable for applications in microscale/nanoscale manipulation systems. Unlike conventional rigid body mechanisms, compliant mechanisms transform the displacement and force at least partly through the deformation of their structural components, which can offer a great reduction in friction, lubrication and assemblage. The results show that the output motion of the optimized compliant mechanism matches the desired path very well, which demonstrates the feasibility of designing compliant mechanisms by this approach.Ĭompliant mechanisms have become an important branch of modern mechanisms. Both the finite element analysis and experimental verification are carried out. Then, by taking the path deviation and strain energy as two objectives, the multi-objective optimization problem is solved at a given initial configuration of the rigid mechanism, followed by a discussion of the best initial configuration where the rigid joint is replaced by elastic flexures. In light of the elliptic integral solution, the kinematics and strain energy of the compliant four-bar linkage are derived and verified by a numerical comparison study.

An equivalent mechanism is proposed to describe the large-deflection motion of a compliant four-bar linkage. This paper deals with the kinematic modeling and optimal design of compliant mechanisms with one flexible joint designed from a rigid four-bar linkage.

Compliant mechanisms howell pdf