Tuning Stiffness Nonlinearity: Theory and Applications

Abstract

Perfect elasticity is not achievable in real-life situation, so spring stiffness is not perfectly constant. In this paper, we study the effect of modifying non-linear stiffness terms while keeping the nominal stiffness constant. We introduce three methods to design and tune linear and nonlinear elastic behavior in the context of compliant mechanisms and we present mechanical realizations. These designs are modeled using Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Numerical simulation and experimental measurement show a good match with the theoretical model. We then present applications of our stiffness tuning methods to mechanical meta-materials, mechanical resonators, and mechanical computation.