The Staircase Drive—A Novel Actuator Design Optimised for Daisy-Chaining and Minimum Stress Load Coupling

This work presents a novel type of actuator that improves over the standard cantilever by permitting daisy-chaining while minimising stress to the joint connecting to the load. A detailed structural and functional comparison of the proposed device against the cantilever actuator as a baseline is giv...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Falk-Martin Hoffmann, Keith R. Holland, Nick R. Harris, Neil M. White, Filippo Maria Fazi
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/d271ac98b06b42d1ac65260860cfaff6
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:This work presents a novel type of actuator that improves over the standard cantilever by permitting daisy-chaining while minimising stress to the joint connecting to the load. A detailed structural and functional comparison of the proposed device against the cantilever actuator as a baseline is given, led by a brief revision of the cantilever actuator as the state-of-the-art that highlights its limitations with respect to daisy-chaining and the stress it inherently creates within the joint connecting to the load when attempting out-of-plane displacement without rotation. Simulations of both devices’ performance confirm that the newly proposed device yields the targeted displacement profile that both enables the daisy-chaining of such a device into a higher-order actuator for increased displacement and reduce stress in the joint with the load. This comes at the cost of reduced maximum displacement compared to the cantilever, which can be overcome by daisy-chaining. The proposed device’s performance is further evaluated on the basis of manufactured prototypes measured by means of a laser scanning vibrometer. The prototype was manufactured on a 150 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">μ</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>m alumina substrate, and both electrodes and piezoelectric layer were deposited in a thick-film printing process.