A Framework for Energy-Based Kinetostatic Modeling of Compliant Mechanisms

Although energy-based methods have advantages over the Newtonian methods for kinetostatic modeling, the geometric nonlinearities inherent in deflections of compliant mechanisms preclude most of the energy-based theorems. Castigliano’s first theorem and the Crotti-Engesser theorem, which don’t require the problem being solved to be linear, are selected to construct the energy-based kinetostatic modeling framework for compliant mechanisms in this work. Utilization of these two theorems requires explicitly formulating the strain energy in terms of deflections and the complementary strain energy in terms of loads, which are derived based on the beam constraint model. The kinetostatic modeling of two compliant mechanisms are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of using Castigliano’s first theorem and the Crotti-Engesser theorem with the explicit formulations in this framework. Future work will be focused on incorporating use of the principle of minimum strain energy and the principle of minimum complementary strain energy.