Design of a Folded Leaf Spring with high support stiffness at large displacements using the Inverse Finite Element Method

Conference paper (2019)

Authors

J. Rommers Mechatronic Systems Design - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
J.L. Herder Mechatronic Systems Design - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Research Group
Mechatronic Systems Design (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
Compliant mechanisms Flexures Precision Support stiffness Inverse Finite Elements
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Published Date

2019

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Precision and Microsystems Engineering

Research Group

Mechatronic Systems Design

Abstract

Compliant (flexure) elements provide highly precise motion guiding because they do not suffer from friction or backlash. However, their support stiffness drops dramatically when they are actuated from their home position. In this paper, we show that the existing Inverse Finite Element (IFE) method can be used to efficiently design flexure elements such that they have a high support stiffness in their actuated state. A folded leaf spring element was redesigned using an IFE code written in Matlab™. The design was validated using the commercial Finite Element software package Ansys™, showing the desired high support stiffness in the actuated state. The proposed method could aid in the design of more compact flexure mechanisms with a larger useful range of motion.