Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms

Book Preface

Compliant mechanisms are seeing expanded use because they offer advantages such as increased performance (e.g. high precision, low weight, low friction), lower cost (e.g. simplified manufacture, low part count), and ability to miniaturize (e.g. makes possible micro- and nanomechanical devices). However, because compliant mechanisms are relatively new compared to more traditional devices, it is difficult for designers to find examples and resources to guide them in their work. Many people are beginning to understand the advantages of compliant mechanisms but there is still a general lack of knowledge of how to implement them. Although many journal articles and some texts are available to aid in the in-depth engineering of compliant mechanisms, a more concise and visual resource is needed to provide inspiration and guidance in the conceptual stages of compliant mechanism design.

The Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms is intended to provide a summary of compliant mechanism modeling and design methods and a broad compilation of compliant mechanisms that will provide inspiration and guidance to those interested in exploiting the advantages of compliant mechanisms in their designs. Early Handbook chapters provide basic background in compliant mechanisms, summaries of some of the major methods for designing compliant mechanisms, categories of compliant mechanisms, and an example of how the Handbook can be used to facilitate compliant mechanism design. Graphics and brief descriptions of many compliant mechanisms are provided to give inspiration in preliminary design.

The Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms is designed to be a resource for engineers, designers, and others involved in product design.We hope that it is found to be useful by many in the development of compliant mechanisms.

The Handbook is divided into the following Parts:

Part I provides an introduction to compliant mechanisms and describes how to use the Handbook to design compliant mechanisms.
Part II focuses on modeling of compliant mechanisms.
Part III describes methods for the synthesis of complia Part IV is a visual library of compliant mechanisms.

We wish to express our sincere thanks to all the contributors that worked to make this handbook possible.We hope that it is found to be useful in creating new compliant mechanism designs.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-0800606. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Brian M Olsen is an employee of Los Alamos National Security, LLC, the operator of Los Alamos National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy. The views expressed in this book are solely those of Brian and the other authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions and opinions of the US Department of Energy or the US Government.

Larry L. Howell
Brigham Young University, USA
Spencer P. Magleby
Brigham Young University, USA
Brian M. Olsen
Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
November 2012