Effect of combination of flexure joints and material used on performance of compliant pantograph mechanism

Compliant mechanism transfers motion or force using the elastic deflection of flexures or the whole mechanism (distributed). Pantograph is a widely proven mechanism which can imitate motion. The compliant pantograph models proposed by earlier researcher are limited to use of all circular flexure hinges; with some reporting geometric amplification (GA) around 2. Thus the present research work is an attempt towards using different combinations of flexures viz. circular, elliptical and parabolic deployed (for proposed six models), while developing the compliant pantograph (CP) in order to improve the GA. Also the effect of material Stainless Steel (SS) and Mild Steel (MS) on the performance of CP is presented. The finite element analysis is undertaken and output displacement is estimated for predecided range of input motion The maximum GA achieved for one of the combinations (combination no. 4) using SS is 2.57 wherein the flexures considered consist of two Elliptical and four circular flexures. Depending on desirable output range any of the above models can be used in micro stages/slides and many more precision applications. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th International Conference on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials.