Liu Tinghao, Hao Guangbo
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering and Architecture, University College Cork, T12 K8AF Cork, Ireland.
Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Aug 8;13(8):1275. doi: 10.3390/mi13081275.
A conventional linear guiding mechanism refers to the slide rail guides composed of multiple assemble parts. These guiding mechanisms suffer from many adverse effects, including lubrication, wear and assembly issues. A novel compliant guiding mechanism is proposed in this paper to address these common problems, and this mechanism transfers or transforms motion, force and energy via the deformation of flexible members. This linear guide is designed in a cylindrical shape, and the centre platform moves along its axis (i.e., the motion direction). The proposed linear guide consists of several in-parallel curved compound double parallelogram mechanisms (CDPMs) connected by the same number of decoupling parallelogram mechanisms. Nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) is used for stiffness analysis and shows that applying the decoupling mechanisms to the detached linear guide (the in-parallel curved CDPMs only) can dramatically improve the stiffness in undesired movement (bearing) directions while keeping its original stiffness along its axis. The nonlinear FEA can capture the stiffness variation by considering all the structural deformation. The issue of bearing-direction stiffness degradation of the detached linear guide is dealt with by applying decoupling mechanisms. The static experimental test is conducted on a 3D printed prototype and shows that the stiffness in the motion direction is nearly constant (linear). The results obtained from the experimental test show good agreement with those obtained from the nonlinear FEA with a maximum error of 9.76%.
传统的线性导向机构是指由多个组装部件组成的滑轨导向装置。这些导向机构存在许多不利影响，包括润滑、磨损和装配问题。本文提出了一种新型的柔性导向机构来解决这些常见问题，该机构通过柔性构件的变形来传递或转换运动、力和能量。这种线性导轨设计为圆柱形，中心平台沿其轴线（即运动方向）移动。所提出的线性导轨由几个通过相同数量的解耦平行四边形机构连接的并行弯曲复合双平行四边形机构（CDPM）组成。非线性有限元分析（FEA）用于刚度分析，结果表明，将解耦机构应用于分离的线性导轨（仅并行弯曲的CDPM）可以显著提高非期望运动（承载）方向上的刚度，同时保持其沿轴线的原始刚度。非线性有限元分析可以通过考虑所有结构变形来捕捉刚度变化。分离的线性导轨的承载方向刚度退化问题通过应用解耦机构来解决。在3D打印原型上进行了静态实验测试，结果表明运动方向上的刚度几乎是恒定的（线性的）。实验测试获得的结果与非线性有限元分析获得的结果吻合良好，最大误差为9.76%。
