Analytical Solution of Stiffness for a Corner-Fillet Leaf-Spring Type Flexure Hinge with a Long Fatigue Life

Abstract

Flexure hinges as the displacement guiding and amplifying mechanism or sensing component are widely used for micro-actuators and sensors. However, the existing flexure hinges, leaf-spring or notch type, cause serious stress concentration which severely weaken the fatigue life of compliance mechanism. Therefore, developing long fatigue life flexure hinges is very important for high working frequency actuators and sensors, such as fast-tool-servo. Corner-fillet leaf-spring type flexure hinge could provide large displacement with lower stress. Stiffness expressions of it with both fixed-fixed and fixed-guided boundary conditions are derived by using Castigliano’s theorem. The main influence factors for stress concentration are investigated and the formulas of stress concentration factor are obtained in terms of ratio of fillet radius to the minimum thickness. These analytical formulas have been verified by comparing with finite element analysis (FEA) results. Stress-life method is chosen to research the influence of fillet radius on fatigue life and the results indicate fillet radius can improve fatigue life of flexure hinge effectively. The proposed analytical solution is the fundamental of optimal design of a leaf-spring type flexure hinge based mechanism with fatigue life constraints.