An energy approach to the design of single degree of freedom gravity balancers with compliant joints

An energy approach to the design of single degree of freedom gravity balancers with compliant joints

Rijff, B.L.

Van der Helm, F.C.T. (mentor)
Herder, J.L. (mentor)

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

BioMechanical Engineering

BioMechanical Design, speciality BioCompatible Design

2010-06-08

A gravity balancer is a mechanism that compensates the weight of a mass over a range of motion. When no friction is present, this gives an energy efficient mechanism and little effort is required to move an object. Conventional mechanisms have drawbacks due to the use of conventional rigid joints. Compliant joints do not have these disadvantages, can be made from fewer parts and can increase performance compared to rigid body joints. The goal of this paper is to develop a single degree of freedom gravity balancer where all the rigid joints are replaced with compliant joints. To reach this goal a new method has been developed. The method is based on connecting rigid links with compliant joints. With a constant potential energy as objective, the method allows new gravity balancers to be designed. It can be concluded that for the first time a gravity balancers has been constructed where all the rigid joints are replaced with compliant joints. The gravity balancer had a peak moment reduction of 93%. The presented method is extensible and allows others to understand and to further develop gravity balancers with compliant joints for other applications.

static balance
constant potential energy
gravity balancing
compliant joints
torsion stiffness

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7627770a-b92b-44ae-929c-f125270d3299

2011-06-08

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Rijff, B.L.