Compliant Mechanisms

A concise survey of compliant mechanisms-from fundamentals to state-of-the-art applications This volume presents the newest and most effective methods for the analysis and design of compliant mechanisms. It provides a detailed review of compliant mechanisms and includes a wealth of useful design examples for engineers, students, and researchers.
Concise chapters guide the reader from simple to more challenging concepts-using examples of increasing complexity-eventually leading to real-world applications for specific types of devices. The author focuses on compliant mechanisms that can be designed using both standard linear beam equations and more advanced pseudo-rigid-body models. He describes a number of special-purpose compliant mechanisms that have use across a wide range of applications and discusses compliant mechanisms in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with several accompanying MEMS examples.
Coverage of essential topics in strength of materials, machine design, and kinematics is provided to allow for a self-contained book that requires little additional reference to solve compliant mechanism problems. This information can be used as a refresher on the basics or as resource material for readers from other disciplines currently working in MEMS.
Compliant Mechanisms serves as both an introductory text for students and an up-to-date resource for practitioners and researchers. It provides comprehensive, expert coverage of this growing field.

This textbook presents methods for the analysis and design of compliant mechanisms, which gain at least some of their mobility from the deflection of flexible members rather than from movable joints only. The analysis of small deflection devices is addressed, but emphasis is on compliant mechanisms that undergo large, nonlinear deflections. The pseudo-rigid-body model is introduced as a method which simplifies the analysis of compliant mechanisms that undergo large deflections by modeling them with elements common to traditional mechanisms. Applications to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are also provided. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

LARRY L. HOWELL is Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.