Design of compliant mechanisms using continuum topology optimization: A review

By Benliang Zhu, Xianmin Zhang, Hongchuan Zhang, Junwen Liang, Haoyan Zang, Hai Li, Rixin Wang. 2020

378 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Compliant mechanisms have become an important branch of modern mechanisms. Unlike conventional rigid body mechanisms, compliant mechanisms transform the displacement and force at least partly through the deformation of their structural components, which can offer a great reduction in friction, lubrication and assemblage. Therefore, compliant mechanisms are particularly suitable for applications in microscale/nanoscale manipulation systems. The significant demand of practical applications has also promoted the development of systematic design methods for compliant mechanisms. Several methods have been developed to design compliant mechanisms. In this paper, we focus on the continuum topology optimization methods and present a survey of the state-of-the-art design advances in this research area over the past 20 years. The presented overview can be helpful to those engaged in the topology optimization of compliant mechanisms who desire to be apprised of the field’s recent state and research tendency.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Control and Systems Engineering, Mechanics of Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c5604610a96eed62bf07dd1287820f9f01293ca