Various external and internal leverage devices have been developed to amplify strain; however, these devices are commonly inefficient due to transmission losses and can be difficult to pack into constrained application volumes. A Recurve actuator architecture has been designed which amplifies direct material strains and allows for construction of highly compact, high-energy-density actuator arrays. The Recurve architecture enables arrays that can be tailored to produce specific force and displacement output and can be configured in a variety of ways to make efficient use of available design space. This paper describes a Recurve actuator architecture and presents a quasi-static model relating voltage, force, and deflection along with experimental results for fundamental Recurve actuator elements.
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