Abstract

Compliant mechanisms offer advantages in precision applications where size, scaling, and environmental effects render traditional mechanisms inadequate or likely to fail. However, designing compliant mechanisms and integrating them into larger, more complex systems remains a challenging problem. This thesis presents work that addresses this issue with analytical models and experiments on flat springs, scalable compliant mechanisms, and origami arrays. Storing and releasing energy in tiny, flat compliant mechanisms opens the door for the design of innovative actuators and products in space-constrained situations. Scaling compliant mechanisms allows novel systems to be made that can operate across scales. By designing for scalability from the beginning, a single design can be efficiently adapted across different sizes while maintaining its function, and the design cost only occurs once. The origami flasher pattern, known for its high deployed-to-stowed ratio, was enhanced into a stable, deployable structure through a novel thickness accommodation technique. This provided a preliminary design used to study the non-rigid-foldable flasher deployment behavior and the feasibility of adding kinematic couplings to achieve high precision of panel alignment. By leveraging novel design strategies, this thesis demonstrates how compliant mechanism and origami systems can be engineered to satisfy requirements of scalable and high-precision systems.

Degree

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering; Mechanical Engineering

Rights

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