• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.4
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• pp.503-515
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• 2022

The multi-rigid-body matrix method (MRBMM) is a generalized modeling method for obtaining the displacements, forces, and dynamic characteristics of a compliant mechanism without performing inner-force analysis. The method discretizes a compliant mechanism of any type into flexure hinges and rigid bodies by implementing a multi-body mass-spring model using coordinate transformations in a matrix form. However, in this method, the deformations of bodies that are assumed to be rigid are inherently omitted. Consequently, it may yield erroneous results in certain mechanisms. In this paper, we present a multi-compliant-body matrix-method (MCBMM) that considers a rigid body as a compliant element, while retaining the generalized framework of the MRBMM. In the MCBMM, a rigid body in the MRBMM is segmented into a certain number of body nodes and flexure hinges. The proposed method was verified using two examples: the first (an XY positioning stage) demonstrated that the MCBMM outperforms the MRBMM in estimating the static deformation and dynamic mode. In the second example (a bridge-type displacement amplification mechanism), the MCBMM estimated the displacement amplification ratio more accurately than several previously proposed modeling methods.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.881-886
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• 2009

This paper presents a manipulation system consisting of a coarse/fine XY positioning system and an out-of-plane manipulator. The object of the system is to conduct tine positioning and manipulation of micro parts. The fine stage and the out-of-plane manipulator have compliant mechanisms with flexure hinges, which are driven by stack-type piezoelectric elements. In the fine stage, the compliant mechanism plays the roles of motion guide and displacement amplification. The out-of-plane manipulator contains three piezo-driven compliant mechanisms for large working range and fine resolution. For large displacement, the compliant mechanism is implemented by a two-step displacement amplification mechanism. The compliant mechanisms are manufactured by wire electro-discharge machining for flexure hinges. Experiments demonstrate that the developed system is applicable to a fine positioning and fine manipulation of micro parts.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.434-439
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• 2010

A compliant mechanism is a mechanism that produces its motion by the flexibility of some or all of its members when input force or thermal load is applied. Whereas the topology optimizations based on homogenization and SIMP parameterization have been successfully applied for compliant mechanism design, ESO approach has been hardly considered yet for the optimization of these types of systems. In this paper, traditional ESO method is adopted to achieve the optimum design of a compliant mechanism for thermal load, since AESO method cannot consider the effect of both heat conduction and convection. Sensitivity number, a criterion for element removal in traditional ESO, was newly defined for input thermal loading. The procedure has been tested in numerical applications and compared with the results obtained by other methods to validate these approaches.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.3 s.168
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• pp.61-67
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• 2005

A dynamic model for flexure hinge-based compliant mechanisms is derived. The dynamic model of the previous works do not well describe the behaviors of rigid bodies in the compliant mechanism when the length of the flexure hinge is long. In this study, the effect on the length of the flexure hinge is pointed out and then the dynamic model is derived to overcome the length effect. For verification, modal analyses are carried out using the proposed dynamic model and FEM (Finite Element Method). Finally they are compared by the terms of modal frequency. As the result, the proposed dynamic model can be used in design and analysis of the compliant mechanism.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.764-771
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• 2003

To control the motion generated by a compliant mechanism the design method using specified geometrical advantage is proposed. The optimization problem is formulated to minimize the difference between the specified and the current geometrical advantage of a mechanism and topology optimization is applied to determine the layout of a mechanism. The results of several test problems including a displacement converter design and a gripper design are compared with a multi-criteria model and show that the design of an accurate compliant mechanism with specified geometrical advantage can be obtained.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.9
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• pp.1779-1786
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• 2002

When the topology optimization is applied to the design of compliant mechanism, unexpected displacements of input and output port are generated since the displacement control is not included in the formulation. To devise a more precise mechanism, displacement constraint is formulated using the mutual potential energy concept and added to multi-objective function defined with flexibility and stiffness of a structure. The optimization problem is resolved by using Finite Element Method(FEM) and Sequential Linear Programming(SLP). Design examples of compliant mechanism with displacement constraint are presented to validate the proposed design method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.756-760
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• 2011

This paper proposed an alignment stage driven by piezo actuators for alignment process of a contact-type lithography. Among contact-type lithography processes, an UV-curable nanoimprint process is an unique process to be able to align patterns on upper and lower layers. An alignment stage of the UV-curable nanoimprint process requires nano-level resolution as well as high stiffness to overcome friction force due to contact moving. In this paper, the alignment stage consists of a compliant mechanism using flexure hinges, piezo actuators for high force generation, and capacitive sensors for high-resolution measurement. The compliant mechanism is implemented by four prismatic-prismatic compliant chains for two degree-of-freedom translations. The compliant mechanism is composed of flexure hinges with high stiffness, and it is directly actuated by the piezo actuators which increases the stiffness of the mechanism, also. The performance of the ultra-precision stage is demonstrated by experiments.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.237-244
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• 2019

This paper suggests novel types of joint mechanisms composed of elastic strings and rigid bodies. All of the human hinge joints have the articular capsule and a pair of collateral ligaments. These fibrous tissues make the joint compliant and stable. The proposed mechanism closely imitates the human hinge joint structure by using the concept of tensegrity. The resultant mechanism has several characteristics shown commonly from both the tensegrity structure and the human joint such as compliance, stability, lightweight, and non-contact between rigid bodies. In addition, the role and feature of the human hinge joints vary according to the origins of a pair of collateral ligaments. Likewise, the locations of two strings corresponding to a pair of collateral ligaments produce different function and motion of the proposed mechanism. It would be one of the advantages obtained from the proposed mechanism. How to make a joint mechanism with different features is also suggested in this paper.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2008

For the accuracy correction of the micro-positioning industrial robot, micro-manipulator has been devised. The compliant mechanisms using piezoelectric actuators is necessary geometrically and structurally to be developed by the optimization approaches. The overall geometric advantage as the mechanical efficiencies of the mechanism are considered as objective functions, which respectively art the ratio of output displacement to input force, and their constraints are the vertical notion of supporting leg and the structural strength of manipulation. In optimizing the compliant mechanical amplifier, the sequential linear programming and an optimality criteria method are used for the geometrical dimensions of compliant bridges and flexure hinges. This paper presents the integrated design process which not only can maximize the mechanism feasibilities but also can ensure the positioning accuracy and sufficient workspace. Experiment and simulation are presented for validating the design process through the comparisons of the kinematical and structural performances.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1281-1286
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• 2013

In this paper, a miniaturized stage with two prismatic-prismatic joints (2-PP) type parallel compliant mechanism driven by piezo actuators is proposed. This stage consists of two layers which are a motion guide layer and an actuation layer. The motion guide layer has 2-PP type parallel compliant mechanism to guide two translational motions, whereas the actuation layer has two leverage type amplification mechanisms and two piezo actuators to generate forces. Since the volume of the stage is too small to mount displacement sensors, the piezo actuators embedding strain gauge sensors are chosen. With the strain gauge-embedded piezo actuators, a semi-control is implemented, which results in hysteresis compensation of the stage. As the results, the operating range of $30{\mu}m$, the resolution of 20 nm, and the bandwidth of 400 Hz in each axis were obtained in the experiments.