An augmented formulation of distributed compliant mechanism optimization using a level set method

• Main Authors: Ruixian Li, Benliang Zhu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2016-08-01
• Series: Advances in Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814016664489

Topology optimization has emerged as one of the key approaches to design compliant mechanisms. However, one of the main difficulties is that the resulted compliant mechanisms often have de facto hinges. For this reason, a simple yet efficient formulation for designing hinge-free compliant mechanisms is developed and examined within a level set–based topology optimization framework. First, the conventional objective function is augmented using an output stiffness. Second, the proposed formulation is solved using a level set method for designing some benchmark problems in the literature. It is shown that the proposed augmented objective function can prevent the de facto hinges in the obtained compliant mechanisms. Finally, some concluding remarks and future work are put forward.