Abstract:
A compliant mechanism can be defined as flexible structure, which uses elastic
deformation to achieve force and motion transmission. These mechanisms are
different from the classic linkage mechanisms with regard to the fact that they rely
on elastic deformation for functionality. Hence any analysis of compliant
mechanism requires a study of mechanics of deformable bodies, in addition to
kinematics. Because of the same very reason, analysis and synthesis of compliant
mechanisms has been the subject of significant study in the research community,
which led to a number of design approaches for developing compliant
mechanisms. Pseudo Rigid Body Model is one of the approaches. In this work,
modeling and analysis of compliant straight line mechanism, based on Roberts
approximate straight line mechanism, is explored. The Pseudo Rigid Body Model
is used to model the compliant mechanism. Its motion and force-displacement
relationship are predicted by Pseudo Rigid Body Model and finally, a commercial
finite element code (ANSYS) capable of nonlinear analysis is used to model the
mechanism with its flexible configuration. The theoretical results based on PRBM
are compared with FEA results of compliant model, which suggest that PRBM
reduces the complexity of analysis and is a desirable method for approximating an
initial design phase of compliant mechanism.
