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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Preliminary Design Approach For Prosthetic Ankle Joints Using Compliant Mechanisms, Jason Matthew Wiersdorf
Preliminary Design Approach For Prosthetic Ankle Joints Using Compliant Mechanisms, Jason Matthew Wiersdorf
Theses and Dissertations
The objective of this thesis is to develop design approaches and models for prosthetic ankle joints using kinematic models of the human ankle and compliant mechanisms technology. Compliant mechanisms offer several potential design advantages over traditional rigid-body designs including high reliability and low cost. These design advantages are ideal for use in prosthetics. Some prosthetic ankle/foot systems currently on the market have multiple degrees of freedom yet are expensive. Additionally, even though these systems have multiple degrees of freedom, none of them are designed after the actual movements of the biological ankle. In this thesis a two, single degree-of-freedom hinge …
Piezoresistive Sensing Of Bistable Micro Mechansim State, Jeffrey K. Anderson
Piezoresistive Sensing Of Bistable Micro Mechansim State, Jeffrey K. Anderson
Theses and Dissertations
The objective of this work is to demonstrate the feasibility of on-chip sensing of bistable mechanism state using the piezoresistive properties of polysilicon, thus eliminating the need for electrical contacts. Changes in position are detected by observing changes in resistance across the mechanism. Sensing the state of bistable mechanisms is critical in their various applications. The research in this thesis advances the modeling techniques of MEMS devices which use piezoresistivity for position sensing. A fully compliant bistable micro mechanism was designed, fabricated, and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of this sensing technique. Testing results from two fabrication processes, Fairchild's SUMMiT …
Compliant Ortho-Planar Spring Behavior Under Complex Loads, Nathan Oliver Rasmussen
Compliant Ortho-Planar Spring Behavior Under Complex Loads, Nathan Oliver Rasmussen
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis presents research on the feasibility of applying compliant-ortho-planar springs (COPS) to rotational applications. The primary motivation of this research is the application of COPS to a continuously variable transmission (CVT). The design space limitations, loading conditions, stresses, stress concentrations, and limitations of current design tools, such as pseudo-rigid-body models (PRBM) for COPS, are discussed. A new 3D PRBM is presented along with a discussion on the possible applications of such to a rotating COPS. Stress stiffening and lateral stability are two major phenomena occurring in a rotating COPS. Both phenomena are a direct result of the inertial loads …