A continuum mechanic design aid for non-planar compliant mechanisms

This thesis documents the development of CoMeT, a conceptual evaluation and detailed synthesis aid for the design of compliant mechanisms. The vision behind CoMeT is making the limiting step in flexure design the speed of the user's imagination, not proficiency with software tools. Sophisticated kinematic analysis routines are seamlessly integrated into a three dimensional finite element program. A user may interface through both a convenient GUI and the powerful MATLAB command line. CoMeT's element models have been shown to generally lie within 3% of traditional FEA predictions. The experimentally determined response of a typical complex mechanism differed by less than 10%, and CoMeT proved to be just as accurate as conventional FEA. In a brief user interaction study, a subject with one hour of CoMeT training was able to perform a two-variable optimization in half the time it took with traditional software. Observations suggest that CoMeT encourages the conceptual thought and high-level insights that are the key to success in mechanism design.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Petri, Patrick Andreas, 1979-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin L. Culpepper, III.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8136

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8136