A Kinematic Simulation Strategy of a Compliant 4-Bar Linkage with Flexure Hinge Joint

Compliant mechanisms have drawn a lot of attention in recent years. Discrete elastic rod theory has paved the way in designing and analyzing linkage mechanisms with flexure hinges (compliant linkage mechanism). In order to achieve a same kinematic as the rigid linkage mechanism, this paper gives a general model for the kinematic of a compliant linkage mechanism: crank and rocker mechanism: Firstly, modeling of a compliant linkage mechanism based on discrete elastic rod theory, taking a typical example of a cranker and rod mechanism; Secondly, kinematic modeling of the rigid cranker and rod mechansim; Thirdly, optimization flow is introduced, including BFGS optimization method, cubic hermix spline method and other relevant settings; Lastly, the simulation results demonstrate that this model could be used in the analysis and design of the compliant linkage mechanism.