Fabrication of compliant mechanisms on the mesoscale

Hayes, Gregory; Frecker, Mary; Adair, James H.

doi:10.5194/ms-2-129-2011

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The lost mold-rapid infiltration forming (LM-RIF) process, developed at Penn State, can be used to fabricate C 3 M devices of both metallic (316L stainless steel) and ceramic (3 mol% yttria-stabilized zirconia) materials. The LM-RIF process is described in Aguirre et al (2011), Antolino et al (2009a, 2009b, and Hayes et al (2011) and is summarized briefly here. The process is used to directly fabricate several C 3 M designs in multiple array sizes and involves the following steps: mold fabrication, colloidal suspension formulation, casting, and sintering.…”

Section: Fabrication Of Mesoscale C 3 Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Microfabrication has been used to develop a variety of ceramic and stainless steel components for mesoscale systems, including components for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) (Christian and Kenis, 2007;Garino et al, 2002;Heule and Gauckler, 2001;Maeda et al, 2004) and microcomponents, such as microgears and micropistons (Imbaby and Jiang, 2009;Zhu et al, 2010). Microfabrication has also been used to fabricate other devices from both ceramics and stainless steel, including cellular structures (Mehta, 2010) and mesoscale surgical tools for endoscopic surgery (Aguirre et al, 2011;Hayes et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Design of contact-aided compliant cellular mechanisms with curved walls

Cirone

Hayes

Babcox

et al. 2012

Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures

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Contact-aided compliant cellular mechanisms are cellular structures designed with contact mechanisms integrated into each cell to provide stress relief. This article addresses compliant cellular structures having curved walls and internal contact mechanisms. The use of curved walls in cellular structures tends to improve their performance in terms of global strain capability and is beneficial for fabrication. In some cells, the addition of contact mechanisms results in stress relief, allowing the cells to be stretched farther than they could without contact. The cellular structures with curved walls are modeled, and finite element analysis is used to calculate the maximum global strains for comparable noncontact and contact-aided cells. An optimization procedure is performed to find the cell geometries that result in the highest global strains. Strains of up to 32.4% and 19.7% are predicted for the optimized curved noncontact and contact-aided cells, respectively. Additionally, a comparison of curved and noncurved, noncontact and contact-aided cells shows that the addition of curved walls results in a significantly greater improvement in global strains than that gained by adding a contact mechanism. Mesoscale contact-aided compliant cellular mechanism designs are fabricated via the lost mold–rapid infiltration forming process and are tested using a custom-designed test rig.

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Section: Fabrication Of Mesoscale C 3 Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of contact-aided compliant cellular mechanisms with curved walls

Cirone

Hayes

Babcox

et al. 2012

Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures

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“…They have been used as a solution for systems that require simplicity in form while retaining complex motion, but such mechanisms are challenging to form and assemble on small scales [3]. Many such mechanisms require feature precision on the mesoscale (0.1-5 mm) and low macroscale (5-100 mm), which can be difficult to create [4]. Metals are used in compliant mechanisms for their various desirable properties (e.g., electrical/thermal conductivity, durability, recyclability, and cleanability).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laser Forming of Compliant Mechanisms

Ames

Smith

Lazarus

et al. 2023

ASME Open Journal of Engineering

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Small-scale flexible (or compliant) mechanisms are valuable in replacing rigid components while retaining comparable motion and behavior. However, fabricating such mechanisms on this scale (from 0.01 to 10 cm) proves difficult, especially with thin sheet metals. The manufacturing method of laser forming, which uses a laser to cut and bend metal into desired shapes, could facilitate this fabrication. However, specific methods for designing mechanisms formed by lasers need to be developed. This work presents laser forming as a means for creating compliant mechanisms on this scale with thin sheet metal. The unique challenges for designing mechanisms to be laser formed are explored, and new adaptations of existing designs are fabricated and discussed. The design of basic “building-block” features is developed for several mechanisms: a parallel-guided mechanism, a cross-axis flexural pivot, a lamina emergent torsional (LET) joint array, a split-tube flexure, and a bi-stable switch. These mechanisms are shown to perform repeatable behavior and motion comparable to existing nonlaser-formed versions. The further possibilities for fabricating compliant mechanisms with laser forming are explored, as advanced applications can benefit from using lasers to create compliant mechanisms from thin sheet metal.

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“…However, it has limited miniaturization and a high manufacturing cost, the latter due to elaborate fabrication processes such as wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) and precision cutting. On the other hand, MEMS fabrication, using metal and silicon materials, need a complex process to produce three-dimensional structures [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microinjection Molding of Out-of-Plane Bistable Mechanisms

Kim

Han

2020

Micromachines

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We present a novel fabrication technique of a miniaturized out-of-plane compliant bistable mechanism (OBM) by microinjection molding (MM) and assembling. OBMs are mostly in-plane monolithic devices containing delicate elastic elements fabricated in metal, plastic, or by a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) process. The proposed technique is based on stacking two out-of-plane V-beam structures obtained by mold fabrication and MM of thermoplastic polyacetal resin (POM) and joining their centers and outer frames to construct a double V-beam structure. A copper alloy mold insert was machined with the sectional dimensions of the V-beam cavities. Next, the insert was re-machined to reduce dimensional errors caused by part shrinkage. The V-beam structure was injection-molded at a high temperature. Gradually elongated short-shots were obtained by increasing pressure, showing the symmetrical melt filling through the V-beam cavities. The as-molded structure was buckled elastically by an external-force load but showed a monostable behavior because of a higher unconstrained buckling mode. The double V-beam device assembled with two single-molded structures shows clear bistability. The experimental force-displacement curve of the molded structure is presented for examination. This work can potentially contribute to the fabrication of architected materials with periodic assembly of the plastic bistable mechanism for diverse functionalities, such as energy absorption and shape morphing.

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Fabrication of compliant mechanisms on the mesoscale

Cited by 13 publications

References 34 publications

Design of contact-aided compliant cellular mechanisms with curved walls

Design of contact-aided compliant cellular mechanisms with curved walls

Laser Forming of Compliant Mechanisms

Microinjection Molding of Out-of-Plane Bistable Mechanisms

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