Short Communication: Flexure delicacies

Abstract

Flexures are nowadays enjoying a new boom in numerous high-precision and extreme-environment applications. The paper presents some delicate issues concerning stiffness compensation, large reduction ratios, as well as rectilinear and circular movements in compliant mechanisms. Novel concrete technical solutions to these well-known issues are described, giving a glimpse into the vast and still largely unexploited potential of flexure mechanisms manufactured by wire-electrical-discharge machining.