Novel annulus-shaped flexure pivot in rotation application and dimensionless design

Large-deflection flexure pivot is widely used in high precision rotation application, but there are less flexure configurations and simple and convenient design methods. This paper presents a novel large-deflection curved-compliant annulus-shaped flexure pivot composed of six curved beam flexure elements. It can offer more than 10° angular stroke theoretically. Firstly, main-motion pseudo-rigid-body method is introduced to establish the flexure pivot model. Although pseudo-rigid-body method can be used to analyze the large-deformation flexure pivot performance, the method is definitely a laborious and difficult task for designing this novel flexure pivot. In order to simply the designing process, dimension-design graphs based on the parametric models and finite element analysis is presented. Using the dimension-design method as a tool, the designers can determine the optimal geometry rapidly, based on the stiffness and rotation demands of an annulus-shaped flexure pivot. Finally, dimension-design graph examples are given whose primary design aims to achieve a rotation stroke of annulus-shaped flexure pivot. The finite element analysis results show that the relative designing error between anticipative rotation stroke and graph design result is less than 4%. The dimensionless method used in designing annulus-shaped flexure pivot can reduce design process in both time and complexity. The novel annulus-shaped flexure pivot and dimension-design method are helpful supplement to configuration and design method of large-deflection flexure pivot.