I want to use double parallelogram(DP) flexure mechanism for an actuator. How can i compute the stiffness of the mechanism in a particular direction using Finite element software?. I am using COMSOL for this analysis.
I'm not familiar with COMSOL. But I think you may give a input displacement along that direction and let finite element software to compute the required force. Then you can use the obtained force and the input displacement to calculate the stiffness.
Thank you for the quick reply. Is this (unit load/unit displacement) method a well established procedure to find stiffness of flexure mechanisms. Can i use this result directly in my research without any analytical or experimental validation?
It's a well established procedure for linear stiffness structure. You need to make sure that the deflection is less than 5% of the length of the flexure. To my understanding, unit load method is an energy-based method and is different from the aforementioned procedure.