Theoretical, numerical, and experimental investigation on second-order Bezier curve flexure hinges

Abstract

This paper proposes the second-order Bezier curve flexure hinge. The flexure hinge can obtain different notch profiles by changing the position of the control points. Firstly, the compliance and precision of the flexure hinge are modeled based on the force deformation formula of the cantilever beam in material mechanics. Compared with the simulation data of ANSYS Workbench, the modeling error is less than 7%. Secondly, the influence of geometric parameters on compliance and precision is analyzed. The flexure hinge is compared with circular, elliptical, and parabolic hinges. The results show that the second-order Bezier curve flexure hinges have a higher compliance precision ratio. In addition, the use of second-order Bezier curve flexure hinges provides better performance than the use of traditional circular and elliptical flexure hinges in bridge amplification mechanisms. Finally, a flexure hinge was manufactured, and compliance was measured. The experimental results show that the error between the experimental and modeling values is 8.76%. Both the simulation and experimental results verified the effectiveness of the model.