Principal Investigator Martin Culpepper
The purpose of this research is to create a design process that enables one to design nano-scale compliant mechanisms (nanoCMs) that utilize the large elastic bending of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs). Compliant mechanisms (CMs) are systems of elastically compliant elements and rigid elements that utilize the elastic bending of their constituent elements to guide large (40% of device size) and complex motions. The large elastic bending characteristics of CNTs indicate that they may possess finite, yet low damping/hysteresis that would make them attractive alternatives to nanomechanical elements that rely on the relative sliding of CNTs. We aim to create a suitable CNT-based CM design process by (1) capturing the large bending behavior of CNTs in a form that is compatible with the Pseudo-Rigid Body Model (PRBM) approach to CM design, (2) characterizing the phenomena that differentiate the behavior of CNT-based CMs from conventional CMs and then use this information to create appropriate failure criteria/metrics, (3) integrating the CNT-compatible PRBM and the new failure criteria/metrics into a software design tool, and (4) validating the nanoCM models, failure criteria, and metrics via experiments.