A testing mechanism and testing procedure for materials in inertial drives

Stick-slip actuators and other friction based drives have a high potential for efficient low cost and high-resolution positioning applications. So for, they are mostly used in research laboratories; there is only a very small number of commercial products in the market. There might be several explanations for this, but the lacking information about wear in these actuators is certainly one reason. The goal in conceiving a testing mechanism for material combinations in stick-slip actuators is, as with any wear test, to be as close as possible to the final application. This means that a reciprocating ball-on-plate rig, driven by a linear motor, as it is used for many wear tests, is not very useful. We propose a testing apparatus and as well as possible testing methods, which permit the comparison of the different material combinations in the contact points of stick-slip actuators.