TOPOLOGY SYNTHESIS OF ELECTROTHERMAL COMPLIANT (ETC) MECHANISMS USING LINE ELEMENTS

摘要

This paper presents a line element based approach to the synthesis of electrothermally actuated compliant (ETC) mechanisms. A line element is a one-dimensional model of the electrical, thermal and elastic behavior of a beam-like continuum. In contrast to topology synthesis of ETC mechanisms by a continuum element based approach, the line element based approach offers significant conceptual and practical advantages. The line element approach allows for accurate modeling of surface heat transfer in a straightforward manner. Moreover, this approach results in clean geometries that are easy to fabricate. The line element based ETC mechanism synthesis procedure is used to study the influence of the direction of output and the electrical and thermal resistance of the workpiece on the resulting optimal topology. Solutions obtained from this procedure are compared with results from continuum based optimal synthesis procedures as well as intuitive designs reported in literature. The ability of the procedure to generate non-intuitive topologies is also demonstrated through design examples.