Compliant Mechanisms: Principles and Design

Prof. G. K. Ananthasuresh
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Lecture – 02
Spirit of compliant design

Hello again, we looked at in the first lecture an over view of compliant mechanisms,
were we considered how they are different from rigid body mechanisms. Rigid body
mechanisms have rigid bodies connected with kinematic pairs, whereas compliant
mechanisms have either elastic pairs or elastic segments or even both; you can have both
elastic pair’s elastic segments in one and achieve compliant mechanisms. Here we have
elastic deformation use to transmit motion, force and energy or even transform energy as
we saw in the case of in electro thermal elastic actuate.

Now in this lecture, let us look at what is mean by the spirit of compliant design. The
spirit of compliant design is visually show here by saying that, we want to bend things,
we want to twist things, we want to stretch and contract the elastic bodies. And I
emphasize the word elastic; because a mechanism has to apply it is force and motion
repeatedly.

If it goes into plastic region then you can only do once, such mechanisms may also be
there, but our emphasis is on things that are elastically deforming so that you can use
them again and again and again. So, we want to bend things, twist things stretch things
and contract things, and basically use elastic deformation. There is more than that for
compliant design which is what we will discuss here.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:54)

Once again in a design principle prefer hinges to sliders and flexures to either of them.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:03)

So discrete compliance, we discussed already in the first lecture and distributed

compliance. So here you have elastic pairs, here you have elastic segments that has to be
born in mind as we go along in this course.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:17)

The word compliant needs to be understood properly. It is a word that was coined by
Professor Ashok Midha when he was at pence state university and later at pared
university where now he is at Missouri University of technology. He choose the word
compliant as oppose to just calling them flexible mechanisms and there was a reason for
it, he thought a lot to coin this word because the word compliant had 2 connotations, but
one concept.

What are the 2 connotations? In the left side you have one connotation flexible
connotation; that means, that it is deformable, it is elastic, it is lithe limber pliant
whatever synonyms you can put where indicating something that changes it is shape; that
is what elastic deformation does.

On the right side you have another set of words all are synonyms of the word compliant,
where you have a different meaning, accommodating, obedient, yielding; yielding
meaning not in plastic thing but bowing to pressure bowing to stress, non resistant
complaisant. So amenable, agreeable, different concept and compliant designs actually
most often (Refer Time: 03:43) back to these 2 connotations. You have elastic
deformable segments there, but also the design there is very compliant, it obeys, it is
environment whenever it is advantages to it.

In order to understand this In fact, I have gathered some words in different languages,
Indian languages Hindi and Telugu and Kannada if you are watching and if you know
newer language words for these 2 connotations suffered compliant please do some many
mail, because I what people to understand compliant mechanisms by first understanding
the word compliant it has 2 meanings.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:20)

As I say that picture is worth 1000 words, let us understand this compliant is a spirit of
compliant design. Here you have a maple leaf which was studied by a biologist Steven
Vogel, who was at Duke University in the biology department; he studied nature and
found lot of interesting compliant designs. In fact, nature is full of compliant designs,
here the maple leaf in high wind folds it itself and makes it arrow dynamic makes, it
itself arrow dynamic, were the lobes and a slides will curve and make it very arrow
dynamic.

So, that the dragon it will reduce in this high wind and so to the marine plants, which
have roots in the soil and the bottom of the shallow waters and then the plant has to come
up, where these stems are compliant. They are flexible in the first connotation of the
word, but they are also compliant in the other connotation, that are obedient when water
currents come here, they just take the shape of the water currents or if look from the top
this thing if you will look from the top, it will be compliant if water waves are pushing
that way pushing, they get pushed they do not resist, they are obedient.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:20)

But they are literally flexible also. So, that is the word compliant in both connotations is
very well captured in this marine plant.

And if you think engineers have not used it will be wrong because this idea of having a
compliant design flexible and obedient design, has been used by many engineers,
without realizing that they work in compliant mechanisms what they all would have
realize is that being compliant can also be being strong, that is he do not have a stiff
structure in order to be strong, you can have compliant and yet be strong and it will very
large design here the tension leg platform for offshore structures.

When you have this big oil rig structure there, that in offshore meaning away from the
shore you do not have pillar constructed to the bottom of the sea bed, instead you have
cables running like this which are very flexible.
(Refer Slide Time: 06:39)

And also like marine plants they are very obedient to the water connects that come,
which will keep this platform with the help of a pontoon like a float over this columns,
and you have control systems to pull this cables to be retention. So, that you can stabilize
the motion, but main thing to realize is that unlike the terrestrial buildings that we have
stiff pillars and beams and columns and so forth, here you have cables that keep it afloat
and stable.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:15)

And plants especially cereal crop plants are even know clever in using compliance, Here
in agricultural literature you find this word called lodging or dislodging, that is when
there is high wind this cereal crop plant especially when they are about to be reaped they
undergo this deformation and follower they get uprooted, but there of course, very close
to one another, but these are very clever in a sense that, if there is a green baring spike
and there is a flexible plant stem, when there is force it will deform this cannot lever
beam if you want to model that cannot lever beam, when it turns like this, when it rotates
like this the drag force and it reduces because it between more arrow dynamic like the
maple leaf.

So, a simple approximation for that be f naught co sigh psi, normally psi will be 0
degrees when it is upright, then we all of f naught will be acting, but when it bends over f
naught times cos sin phi will be acting on it when phi goes to 90 degrees almost equal to
0. So, these plants are very clever in the sense that by fluxing they are reducing the drag
force. One other aspect is that the movement arm that is the height from where the force
is acting to the ground, that movement arm is also reducing; not only the force value is
reducing, the movement arm will also reducing the bending movement that uproots this
is actually quite low compare to when it is where to be stiff and very (Refer Time: 08:57)
it will have a lot of things.

All the people feel that when it is bending over it is actually weak, in fact that is wrong.
What they have found when this wheat plants were developed with (Refer Time: 09:1)
height gene modification that is genetic modification, to grow the wheat plants to make
them shorter, grow to a shorter height, smaller height they thought that this bending over
will be prevented. But, wheat plants still bend to over by genetically modifying
themselves to make the effective in (Refer Time: 09:32) of the plants to be lower.

So, they can bend and reduce the drag force, due to the wind as well as the movement
arm. So, nature uses compliance very well. Here again you have flexible that is one
meaning of compliance and the other is being obedient. When somebody is pushing you
better bend over and reduce the load as they very cleverly do; maple leaves and the
cereal crop plants.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:00)

As you are listening the first thing that you will wonder is; do not they break. We all
think that whenever something is flexible and bends are elastically deforms, we think it
is going to break. And that is not that is by, while it is a valid question, but it is not a
concerned when you design compliant mechanism properly; is a question of choosing the
right kind of material that has right kind of geometry, if you have it you do not have to
worry about it.

The ability to with stand overloads that is I bend therefore, I do not break; is the principle
on which compliant mechanisms rest that is you can make something very flexible, but
that does not mean it is not strong. It is not a sign of weakness at all when something
bends, as we saw examples from nature.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:53)

And in order to show that I have a little device here.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:58)

That was basically an acrylic plate over here, in which a spiral is cut. So, it is cut with
laser. So, you cannot see much over here and I have attached the rod here. When I do
that it becomes very flexible. So, if you where to feel in your hand you would see how
flexible it is, acrylic it is brittle material if I drop it is going to break, but we have made a
very flexible spring out of it. If you think this acrylic is one thing, I would say any
material even granite if you take and cut this we can make it to be flexible.
So, flexibility is not a property of the material alone it is also a property of geometry, in
order to emphasis that what you see in this slide here is the silicon where you have
etched a square spiral.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:45)

That makes it very flexible, as you can see here that is like a conical spring you can have
that spiral cut and make it very flexible. Silicon is very brittle material single crystal
silicon, now we can see we can makes springs out of it. In fact, the whole of Micro
electro mechanical systems feel would not have developed if people did not exploit the
flexible designs or compliant designs that can be made with brittle materials like silicon.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:20)

And there are a lot of devises that we look around and find them, here is one that I have
taken from the cover of this clothes pegs sold in united kingdom, it is a British product
they proudly say unique design has a powerful integral, spring action being made in 100
percent plastic they are rust free.

So, they are found a advantage that you do not have metal sprung things and the single
molded item has no metal part to rust, no wood stain, is not wood is not being used, it is
a plastic polymer, it will not break they tell you made of polypropylene and you can by
them. And in fact, we use them at home to see that they have single piece design you can
have them in different colors and they actually the say up to three times stronger than
metal sprung pegs.

So, people have confidence some people who confidence and they have this compliant
mechanism used.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:21)

And aesthetics also becomes a little easier here because you can make with polymers that
have plotted lot a different colors, this one was Professor Ashok Midha students
designed it to have a fish hook remover and they made it look like a fish. So, you can
integrate aesthetics more easily than with rigid body linkages.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:46)

And there are number of products some of them are rigid body linkages here, this is the
same function this is the eyelash curler, there is a rigid body, design there is a partly
compliant design, there is a flexural joint here. This one has a little metal part that bends
it is also a partial one. If you look at this, this one is completely flexible all that you have
is when apply some force they should be two points that should move vertically between
each other. So, eyelashes can be curled, this a cosmetic industry product.

There are products like that which take advantage of compliance to make it a very simple
design as you see in this slide. And beauty (Refer Time: 14:31) holder, I do not know
which one you will buy, but the one that is here is really elegant because it has a nice
curved shape made of steel or a stainless steel and it has enough deformation to make
this things go vertically towards one another to solve this function.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:47)

And size is definitely not a concerned here, we can make them Macro and this is actually
Micro is not Macro this is Micro and they can also Nano we can make with focus. And
be milling you can do that you can have any size that you like.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:03)

Let us look at some Macro devices, something with which you can crush a cemented
sand specimen or even marf the wing of an aircraft, we can have such large compliant
designs which people are contemplating today and you can have Meso which are smaller
once, for example this one is a metal one, which is about a centimeter or 2 centimeter in
size when I am pulling here this thing will open and close over there you can use sera
with materials, this was used in armor. For example ceramic material also can be to
deform as long as you design properly, these are 3D printed one you can have a lots of
polymers.

At Micro scale you can use silicon like you see in these things, we will discuss more
about applications of compliant mechanisms in Micro electro mechanical systems, we
can have Nano scale as well these are scaffolds use for growing biological cells, these a
focused and been melt four bar linkage, more for fun than any application, but Nano
scale you can have this compliant designs.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:11)

(Refer Slide Time: 16:12)

Look at some more these things this is a Macro one, where you can test the cemented
sand specimen which can be kept over here as it will be showed in this movie, this is
where the cemented sand specimen that why with your fingers you cannot crush, it is
quite different very strong.

But you can use this force amplification force compliant mechanism, that when you
apply force you can actually crush this cemented sand specimen and there is a display
amplification mechanism here that indicate how much the force have been applied, you
start first crushed there and you put a hall effect sensor here there a real proto type, you
can actually measured what force was applied at the time the cemented sand specimen
failed at this point and your force supplied over there.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:05)

So, we can make very stiffens and we can make compliant mechanisms with spring steel
strips, not just polymers you can use any material here aluminum brackets are there over
here and here otherwise spring steel strips here, here and here are the ones that endow
this mechanism the elastic flexibility.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:28)

We will go down to Meso scale.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:31)

As already showed this mechanism, which is made of a spring steels strip, very thin strip,
which was cut with these beams which are 150 or 170 Microns in width, here we can
make with metal also grippers.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:48)

And we can also make sensors; here is a Meso scale dual axis accelerometer with x y z
decupling compliant mechanism, which I showed in the first lecture as the one that has
two translation degrees of freedom. If this the mass what is call proof mass, rest of it all
one piece you can just make of a metal sheet by etching and you can use the battery to
act to the mass.

So basically you can put 2 batteries and either side for cemetery and here is where the
steel thin film is there, I am showing the side view here and that is going to look like this
in the top view and you can have built in powers supply and whenever there is
acceleration. This will move a little bit you can measure it in various ways, it will be hall
effects sensor is one and you can make accelerometer.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:41)

And this was made and tested by the students, where the size is big is a Meso scale as
suppose to (Refer Time: 18:47) where be actually have a detail case study for you to
consider, but the Meso scale one which is quite large.
(Refer Slide Time: 18:56)

But it can give the reasonable resolution very simple in batteries part of that used as a
mass 25 milli-g, sometimes even milli-g can be result using these compliant mechanisms
if we also include amplification.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:11)

Go down to Micro.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:13)

So, here is a Micro scale compliant mechanism again these a proof mass if there is
acceleration this mass will moves because it is suspended with this compliant beam
suspensions, but instead of measuring the displacement here, you measure it a little away
by having this displacement amplification devise here, which in finite element it is
movement here is not at all visible, whereas this one has gone from here to there.

There is this amplification, you have sensing (Refer Time: 19:44) here electro static
capacitance based sensing of the displacement, there you can have amplification of 6.4
with the compliant mechanism, if you were to take a mechanism that is this big both of
this and this occupy the same area; here we have cut down on the proof mass and added
this DACM; Displacement Amplification Compliant Mechanism, we get much more
displacement for the same acceleration there subject to these 2.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:18)

And you can look at the thing here, it is moving if we observe closely we can see this is
moving over there and as we move up with the proof masses that proof mass will not be
moving. Now you see the beams there is movement here, when you down to the proof
mass that would not be visible because there is amplification of over 6.4 or 7 here. So,
the beams here that you see are only 5 Microns in diameter and many of them are used in
Mems designs and you do not have to worry about their breaking because their design
such that, there is large displacement in the strain and stresses are kept small.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:58)

And it polymers of course, you can make many more and here are Miniature grippers
you can make a gripper and make another gripper, that can be grafts with the previous
one and make it smaller and smaller and you can make the width of this to the limit of
what lithography, portal lithography will allow you and which in our lab we go down to
5 Microns very easily, these one of the larger grippers as large as the one in the and the 1
rupee Indian 1 rupee coin.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:28)

(Refer Slide Time: 21:30)

Go down to Nano scale you have proteins is just an artistic rendering of how proteins
work, but they are also compliant mechanisms. In fact, if you look at this one there is a
(Refer Time: 21:42) something happens over there. It looks like a gripper a kinds of
gripper that are already showed and a (Refer Time: 21:48) of bacteria also involves
elastic deformation of the single chain protein chains, they are made of amino acid
residues or hemoglobin which let us oxygen molecule in and out they all work like
mechanical devises in particular compliant mechanisms.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:09)

And you can have them in 3D too, what you see here on this side here, is a basically at
2D compliant mechanism turned into a 3D, such as the one that I will demonstrate with
my finger here, you have basically one part of one layer under 3 of them, you put there
like this become the 3D compliant mechanism.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:29)

This is like cheating, this is very simple 2D have meant to 3D, but real 3Dimensional
compliant mechanisms also possible as you can see in the on the slide, which has
basically a shell crowd shell, which is a spike, I am showing very simple example to
show you that there are compliant mechanism around us, we can fold it and make it like
this.

So, you have several devises such as this thing around you if you want to see.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:08)

And if you go down and look at materials it itself, these days people talk about meta
materials, meaning that they are not really materials, but you can make them behave like
materials; what you see here is a building block, if I want to pull this to the right and pull
this to the left, we can see that this rod will move up this rod will move down, meaning
that this reentrant structure will straighten so that when I move something like this
stretch other direction also which structures.

That is the negative parsons ratio behavior which you can have a compliant mechanism
building block like this, when apply force here this and it will move out this way and if
we repeated, you get an unusual material that has negative parsons ratio. We designed at
and one of the students in MIT had actually made it long ago. So, we can have material
Microstructure design with compliant mechanisms, so that you can achieve unusual
properties.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:10)

Here is another example unusual property, where there are 2 materials that are used one
of them has 10 times thermal expansion coefficient as oppose to another one, as compare
to another one this has let us say unit, this has 10 times thermal expansion coefficient
alpha.

Now if there arranged in particular fashion which professor Sigmund did one of his
works were when you heat it, it will actually contract rather than expand this one
building block you can see over here, you look at the gap here, that gap has reduced. So,
over all things it actually becomes a little smaller that is when you hear it, it can actually
contract that is unusual behavior, but you can get it with compliant mechanisms.

So, at the Micro structural scale you look at them has compliant mechanisms and in fact,
any material the way atoms and molecules are arranged, you can actually look at them
under scale as complained mechanisms, that are why I call proteins as Nano scale
compliant mechanisms.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:16)

Having said all this spirit of compliant design I hope you understood now, will let us also
balance over view by taking about a few disadvantages of compliant mechanisms there
will be.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:31)

So, it is nothing likes free lunches they say and it has to do with 2 things, one is
mechanical efficiency, other is mechanical advantage both of these are compromised in
compliant mechanisms. And it is something that can be overcome, but one has to design
for it. Let us think about mechanical efficiency, in a rigid body linkage if there is no
friction whatever input energy you put in that is available at the output because there is
no loss anywhere in the mechanism, but that is not true with compliant mechanisms, here
when you supply some input energy, part of it gets stored as strained energy inside the
structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:14)

So let us look at this devise for example, when I applying some energy here by doing
work, it is deflecting all over, when it deflexed it stores elastic energy up strain energy in
it and only the rest of it that is my input energy minus whatever the energy stored in the
mechanism is what is the available at the output and that is not good, your mechanical
efficiency is low, that is a disadvantage of compliant mechanisms and one has to
overcome that if that is important to you.

The other one which is more settle is to do with mechanical advantage, let us look at the
slide and understand what we mean.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:56)

So, here what we are showing is the additional work your mechanism moving and I
moving by delta in little bit and I am getting some (Refer Time: 27:09) and what is the
work done delta w that you have is the input energy minus output energy, that is what
will be you are change in strain energy that you have and we of course, neglecting the
delta F in times delta in which is the higher order term, delta F out time delta out higher
order term. So, the work that you are doing gets stored as strain energy and there is some
input energy and output energy that you have you gets this. Basically delta w is Delta SE
and we are neglecting the higher order terms for the sake of argument.

Now, using this that is delta SE is equal to F in times delta in, minus F out times delta
out, you can rearrange this in this fashion F out delta out is equal to F in delta in minus
delta SE, basically I have taken the this side and got in this other side. Now I divide
throughout by let say F in and delta out, so I will get F out and I bring this over here and
here, so what I get here? F out by F in is your mechanical advantage, that is output force
divide by input force is your mechanical advantage likewise delta in divided by delta out
input displays by output displacement, is a mechanical advantage because the reverse of
it is your a geometric advantage, delta out by delta in now we have delta in by delta out
is mechanical advantage is the rigid body counter part of it. In rigid body there would not
be any strain energy. So, what you have will be F out times delta out is equal to F in
times delta in energy balance is there or work balance is there

Here we have delta strain energy coming in between and that is coming with the
negative sign. When you have some rigid body mechanical advantage, the compliant
mechanical advantage happens to be negative\ because F in and delta out where both
positive we have a particular direction for input force, is a particular direction for output,
if output moves other way, that mechanism is useless to you because both of them have
to be in the direction that you intent, so that is positive.

Strain energy most often is positive because when you are doing this, then you are
deflecting something strain energy will be positive unless you design a mechanism that
has delta SE negative, negative times negative will have positive component. But most
often mechanical advantage compliant mechanism, as compare to rigid body counterpart
will be negative. Will discuss this more in a complete lecture later on, but most often
both mechanical efficiency and mechanical advantage are compromised in compliant
mechanisms enhance we have to be doubly careful in designing them.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:13)

And. In fact, ideas for that already exist one of them is called the Static balancing. Here
you preload the mechanisms like this professor just herder (Refer Time: 30:24) lot of
work on static balancing has done, we can preload a mechanism. So, that energy stored
already and when you where to apply some input force somewhere, the loaded energy
pre loaded energy will be use to deform the compliant mechanism, without taking
anything from your input energy all of that can be made available at the output.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:51)

So, static balancing is one way to overcome this mechanical efficiency problem, that is
what is done by one of my PhD students who is now what IIT Guwahati and another
student Amrit Hansogi, Sanagemsh Deepak is the one whose PhD thesis cause an static
balancing where is has created mechanism these 2 friends Amrit and Sanagemsh have
done this where a large compliant mechanism as a little spring somewhere with pre
loaded energy, when you try to pull this rod up, this spring will relaxes gives it is energy
to deform the things.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:38)

So, that compliant mechanism deforms and gives you the functionality, but all your input
energy is with you, your bank deposit is with you and that gives the output work to be
done, whereas only the preloaded energy will be use to deform the compliant
mechanism. Taking about disadvantages, while mechanical efficiency and mechanical
advantage can be countered by having preloading which was also seeing in detail in a
much later part of the course, let us also note that at high speed.

When there are too many cycles, compliant mechanism are not so good. Because you are
actually deflecting the mechanism deform with the mechanism and look into parametric
resonance and also this Viscoelastic effects, non-linear inertial effects, all of this will
complicate were analyses I am not saying it is a disadvantage from the view point of
design, but in terms of analysis that you have to do it can be quite complicated, in
practice if you really want to high speed compliant mechanism you can actually have it,
there is no problem but one has to do extra work for that.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:33)

Now, let us comeback to our discrete versus distributed compliance, were instead of
having a flushes if you want to have a true compliant mechanism in the spirit of
compliant design, the distributed compliance is much better.

There are design methods for synthesizing both, as you can see here the topology will
understand the word little a bit later is very different for discrete compliant mechanism
and distributed compliant mechanism because even though they both do the same thing,
their shape topology is very different and their perform is also very very different wait
and pressure distributed compliance.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:11)

So, if you want to add another line to what Michel French said; prefer hinges to sliders,
flexures to either he said but I would like to add distributed compliance to all, if you do
that then you are capture these sprit of compliant mechanisms really really well.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:28)

And how do you define this distributed compliance? I would say that something that has
uniform geometry and has equal deformations in this entire structure and the stress and
strain are evenly distributed, then that will be the best compliant mechanism what is
there and helical spring that is some that we see everywhere is a very good candidate.
If you look at the geometry it is same (Refer Time: 33:58) diameter everywhere in the
helices and it is deformation everything twist just equally all along the spring and the
strain and stress are also uniform throughout and you can see how much deformation that
can have, you can take a spring and stretch it and compress it and that gives you a very
good distributed compliant design here.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:20)

Just to end this even the logo of our lab, as students have design with compliant
mechanisms and we have used them in many disciplines at many scales which you will
see in this course later on.
(Refer Slide Time: 34:34)

And these are all the students who had work on PhD students, master’s students, project
staff and collaborators and lot of sponsors you have done.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:46)

So, I will end this by showing that one application in robotics, if you have compliant legs
you can make something very easy to control, in this case there is single degree of
freedom mechanism. It has 6 legs, all of them are compliant, is able to going in rough
terrain. There is no control what so ever, just there gayer with one motor.
There are 2 motors to get more (Refer Time: 35:12) otherwise it is basically one motor, it
is just doing by it itself. And having compliance again going back to the notion flexible,
that is already there and then being compliant meaning obedient we just when some
obstruction comes you just bend your leg and move on. And that is a way to go for it.

Thank you.