A Study of Mechanical Advantage in Compliant Mechanisms

Gautam Kumar , R and Ananthasuresh, GK (2013) A Study of Mechanical Advantage in Compliant Mechanisms. In: Proceedings of the 1st International and 16th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms (iNacoMM 2013), December 18-20, 2013, IIT Roorkee, India.

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Abstract

Understanding mechanical advantage of a compliant mechanism is not straightforward for two reasons: (i) it uses a part of the input energy in elastic deformation and (ii) its kinetoelastic behavior depends on the stiffness of the workpiece. In this paper, we study mechanical advantage using non-dimensional analysis of compliant mechanisms. We use parameterized kinetoelastostatic maps that show mechanical advantage against a non-dimensional number that captures geometric and material properties as well as forces. The maps help compare different topologies of compliant mechanisms based on mechanical advantage. The maps also help delineate kinematic and elastic contributions to mechanical advantage. Case studies reveal that while mechanical advantage usually increases with increasing external stiffness and slenderness ratio, but it decreases with increasing gap between the output port and an elastic workpiece. A noteworthy observation in this work is that there can be exceptions to this general trend and that kinematic and elastic contributions can both be positive so that the mechanical advantage of a compliant mechanism can exceed that of a rigid-body counterpart. This work also revisits the fact that it is possible to design a compliant mechanism such that its mechanical advantage is not affected by the stiffness of the workpiece

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Publisher:	Proceedings of the 1st International and 16th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms (iNaCoMM2013), IIT Roorkee, India
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the Proceedings of the 1st International and 16th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms (iNaCoMM2013), IIT Roorkee, India, Dec 18-20 2013
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2016 05:41
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2016 05:41
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/54630

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