Design of a Constant-Torque Compliant Joint Based on Curved Beam Elements

In this paper, the design of a novel constant-torque compliant mechanism is presented. The joint is based on flexures with variable curvature. The modeling approach consists of discretizing the flexures with two-node elements with variable length and curvature. The chained beam constraint model has been used to perform the kinetostatic analysis, whereas a genetic algorithm has been implemented to carry out the optimization process. Due to the choice of the optimization parameters that are length and curvature of each element and the joint size, a large design space has been explored. Finite element simulations have been performed to validate the performance of the designed flexure.