Purpose

This paper aims to propose a method for manufacturing multi-material monolithic structures with flexible materials to construct the elastic body by using a dual-nozzle three-dimensional printer to develop a piezoelectric (PZT)-driven micropositioning stage with three degrees of freedom (3-DOF) and flexure hinges.

Design/methodology/approach

Polylactic acid (PLA) and nylon were used for the lever structure’s frame and flexure hinge, respectively. Additionally, the stage consisted of three PZT actuators for fine movement in the nanometer scale in 3-DOF (x, y and θ-directions). For the design of the stage, the kinematic analysis model and the finite element method (FEM) analysis was undertaken for comparing between PLA with nylon (multi-material), PLA (single material) and aluminum (conventional-material). In addition, two verification experiments were implemented for the fabricated prototype stage. First, to evaluate various assessments (lever ratio, hysteresis, coupling error and resolution), a measurement is carried out using the three capacitive sensors. Then, a two-camera-vision measurement experiment was performed to verify the displacement and lever ratio over the full-scale working range of the fabricated positioning stage, and the results from the experimentation and the FEM analysis were compared.

Findings

The authors confirmed enhancements in the properties of the lever structure frame, which requires stiffness and of the hinge, which requires flexibility for elastic deformation. Comparing FEM analysis and experimental results, although the performance as shown by experimental results was lower: the maximum difference being 3.4% within the end-point working range; this difference was sufficient to be a plausible alternative for the aluminum-based stage.

Originality/value

Multi-material monolithic-structure fabrication has an effective advantage in improving the performance of the stage, by using a combination of materials capable of reinforcing the desired characteristics in the necessary parts. It was verified that the fabricated stage can substitute the aluminum-based stage and can achieve a higher performance than single-material stages. Thus, precise-positioning stages can be manufactured in many kinds of structures with various properties and contribute to weight reduction and low costs for application equipment.

中文翻译：

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使用多材料3D打印机制造具有弹性体的压电驱动微定位3自由度平台

目的

本文旨在提出一种通过使用双喷嘴三维打印机开发具有三个自由度的压电（PZT）驱动的微定位平台来制造具有柔性材料的多材料整体结构以构造弹性体的方法（3 -DOF）和挠性铰链。

设计/方法/方法

杠杆结构的框架和挠性铰链分别使用了聚乳酸（PLA）和尼龙。此外，该平台包括三个PZT致动器，可在3-DOF（x，y和θ方向）上以纳米级精细移动。对于阶段的设计，进行了运动学分析模型和有限元方法（FEM）分析，以比较PLA与尼龙（多种材料），PLA（单一材料）和铝（常规材料）之间的差异。此外，为制造的原型阶段实施了两个验证实验。首先，为了评估各种评估（杠杆比，磁滞，耦合误差和分辨率），使用三个电容式传感器进行测量。然后，

发现

作者证实，杠杆结构框架的性能有所增强，这需要刚度，而铰链则需要弹性以进行弹性变形。将有限元分析与实验结果进行比较，尽管实验结果表明性能较低：在端点工作范围内最大差为3.4％。这种差异足以成为铝基阶段的合理替代方案。

创意/价值

通过使用能够在必要部件中增强所需特性的材料组合，多材料整体结构制造在提高平台性能方面具有有效的优势。经验证，该制造平台可以替代铝基平台，并且可以实现比单一材料平台更高的性能。因此，可以以具有各种特性的多种结构来制造精确定位台，并且有助于减轻重量并降低涂布设备的成本。