Combining Multi-Material Rapid Prototyping and Pseudo-Rigid Body Modeling for a new compliant mechanism

Multi-Material Rapid Prototyping (MM-RP) is a promising fabrication process for compliant mechanisms, for instance when compactness is a concern. The Pseudo-Rigid Body Model (PRBM) approach is well-known for the synthesis of compliant mechanisms. It is usually based on the use of compliant joints to provide the mechanism mobilities. In this paper, we propose the HSC joint as a new type of revolute compliant joint that is well adapted to MM-RP, and that offers interesting properties in terms of stiffness and range of motion. Based on the HSC joint, a new compliant mechanism, suitable for interventional MRI, is introduced with assessment of a first prototype that is entirely made out of a single polymer part. The interest is twofold. First, the device constitutes a promising solution in this medical context. Second, the impact of the use of MM-RP in combination with PRBM can be evaluated, and their use is discussed as a conclusion.