Optimal design and simulation of compliant mechanism used as amplifier of micro linear actuator

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a compliant mechanism that can be used as an amplifier mechanism of the micro linear actuator. The design includes the synthesis of pseudo rigid-body mechanism, the converting rigid mechanism to a compliant mechanism, the parameterization of dimensions of compliant mechanism, design variables' choice and the optimal design using ANSYS optimization tool. In addition, the paper also describes the use of response surface analysis tool of ANSYS Workbench to evaluate the effect of design variables on the optimization so that to investigate the sensitivity of those design variables on the objective function. The finite element model of the designed mechanism is established and used to simulate the compliant mechanism and to evaluate the amplification ability. The results show that the amplification ratio is higher than 10.