Development of a Piezoelectric Stick‐Slip Actuator With Two L‐Shaped Flexure Hinges in Series Connection

In this work, a piezoelectric stick‐slip actuator with the merit of compact structure using a novel flexure hinge mechanism is proposed and experimentally evaluated. Two L‐shaped flexure hinges are connected in series to form a special flexure hinge mechanism. A PZT stack is inserted in this flexure hinge mechanism to serve as the actuation unit. The extension of PZT stack generates a hybrid deformation on the driving foot due to the special configuration. This hybrid deformation includes a vertical component and a horizontal component. They are used to press and drive the slider, respectively. The statics deformation analysis of the actuator is carried out by finite element simulation and a dynamic model is built to study the motion performance in theory. Finally, a prototype is manufactured and experimentally measured. The results showed that the maximum speed of the actuator was 4.39 mm/s when the voltage and exciting frequency were 100 V and 480 Hz. The actuator obtained the maximum output force of 1.2 N under the preload force of 3 N.