Traditional rigid mechanisms exhibit problems such as assembly difficulties, friction and lubrification. Flexure-based compliant mechanisms, instead, are monolithic and gain their mobility thanks to proper design and material deflection. Designing and producing a compliant mechanism accurately and conveniently is crucial. Thanks to its capabilities, additive manufacturing (AM) approach can provide optimal design and production and open the way to new, unexploited performances. This study investigates the redesign of a traditional cantilevered pivot. The redesign considers the performance improvements by exploiting the advantages of the AM based on laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF). The maximum tensile and compressive loads of the redesigned joint were identified. The structure was optimised by considering the most critical geometrical parameters in terms of mechanical performance. The geometrical factors comply with the design rules for L-PBF process, to maximise the dimensional and surface accuracies. The new approach to the flexural joint design presented in this paper provided higher mobility if compared with the traditional approach. Therefore, this study makes a major contribution to research on the production of precision alignment mechanisms and scientific instruments.
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Ercolini et al. (2021) studied this question.