An Analytical Formulation for the Lateral Support Stiffness of a Spatial Flexure Strip

Marijn Nijenhuis, J.P. Meijaard, Dhanushkodi Mariappan, Just L. Herder, Dannis M. Brouwer, Shorya Awtar (Corresponding Author)

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    17 Citations (Scopus)
    84 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    A flexure strip has constraint characteristics, such as stiffness properties and error motions, that govern its performance as a basic constituent of flexure mechanisms. This paper presents a new modeling approach for obtaining insight into the deformation and stiffness characteristics of general three-dimensional flexure strips that exhibit bending, shear, and torsion deformation. The approach is based on the use of a discretized version of a finite (i.e., nonlinear) strain spatial beam formulation for extracting analytical expressions that describe deformation and stiffness characteristics of a flexure strip in a parametric format. This particular way of closed-form modeling exploits the inherent finite-element assumptions on interpolation and also lends itself for numeric implementation. As a validating case study, a closed-form parametric expression is derived for the lateral support stiffness of a flexure strip and a parallelogram flexure mechanism. This captures a combined torsion–bending dictated geometrically nonlinear effect that undermines the support bearing stiffness when the mechanism moves in the intended degree of freedom (DoF). The analytical result is verified by simulations and experimental measurements.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number051401
    JournalJournal of mechanical design
    Volume139
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 20 Mar 2017

    Keywords

    • 2023 OA procedure

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