Preliminaries for a Spherical Compliant Mechanism: Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model Kinematics
The kinematic portion of a pseudo-rigid-body model (PRBM) is developed as a generalization from planar to spherical mechanisms. The topology of the spherical compliant segment and its rigid-body equivalent are derived from planar models by analogy. The nomenclature for the spherical PRBM is chosen to facilitate comparison with the planar PRBM. The motion of the compliant segment is calculated using FEA and PRBM parameters are determined. The characteristic radius and parametric angle coefficient are found to decrease as the angle subtended by the beam increases. The parameterization limit increases with increasing beam angle. The spherical PRBM is identical to the planar PRBM in the limiting case when beam angles become very small.