A Structure Load Performance Integrated Model Method for the Bridge-Type Displacement Amplification Mechanism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The objective of this paper is to model a displacement amplification mechanism for a piezoelectric actuator, i.e., a piezoelectric flextensional actuator. It is interest for the community. The topic is suitable to be published in Machine. However, major revision is recommended to give reader more attention and protentional to be used for piezoelectric actuator design.  The authors should 1) give more background review of piezoelectric flextensional and more hybrid piezoelectric actuators and piezoelectric actuators, 2) discuss how common piezo actuator driver properties effect of the DAR? 3) how are the nonlinear piezoelectric properties cancel or enhance the nonlinear properties of the bridge-type displacement amplification mechanism? 

Some suggested references:

A., Dogan, J., Tressler, and R. E., Newnham. Solid-state ceramic actuator designs. AIAA Journal, 39(7):1354–1362, 2001 

Dogan A, Uchino K and Newnham R E 1997 Composite piezoelectric transducer with truncated conical endcaps cymbal IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control 44 597–605 

L Tolliver, TB Xu, X Jiang, “Finite element analysis of the piezoelectric stacked-HYBATS transducer” Smart Mater. Struct. 22 035015, 2013 

J. Liu, W. O'Connor, E. Ahearne and G. Byrne, “Electromechanical modelling for piezoelectric flextensional actuators,” Smart Mater. Struct. 23 025005 (2014) 

R. Liu, L. E Cross, G. Knowles, B. Bower, B. Childers, “A stackable bonding-free flextensional piezoelectric actuator,” Journal of electroceramics, 2000, Vol.4 (1), p.201-206

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “A structure-load-performance integrated model method for the bridge-type displacement amplification mechanism” contains mathematical modelling uses Castigliono’s second theorem to incorporate the deformation in the components of the displacement amplifier and provides the theoretical results for the bridge-type displacement amplification mechanism to control the micro-positioning jig.

First, hybrid compliant mechanisms provide better displacement amplification ratios and can be easily fabricated due to technological development in fabrication processes. Please elaborate in the introduction that why the bridge-type mechanism is chosen over other mechanisms with logical explanation/relevant references.

Second, please include the experimental validation for the proposed structural parameters obtained through modelling in the manuscript, which can be easily achieved by fabricating a prototype and validating the structural integrity experimentally for further consideration of the revised manuscript for the publication. The manuscript is incomplete without the experimental verification of the proposed model/ parameters.

Furthermore, the list of references includes research papers from same research groups and very limited references are cited whereas many references are available on the displacement amplification mechanisms i.e. hinge lever, rhombus with hinges, and compound bridge etc. In addition, the amplification mechanisms are widely used in the dispensing applications as well but no reference is cited for this area of application. Please diversify the references by including the current research on the subject matter in detail.

Finally, the manuscript must be revised by a native professional to eliminate the grammatical, punctuation, and sentence structure mistakes.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript reports the analytical modeling of a bridge-type displacement amplification mechanism, which takes into account several factors, including the presence of an external load. The results obtained from the analytical model are then compared with data derived from FEM simulations, which provided good agreement. Overall, the text is well organized and the approach well described. There are only few minor issues that should be addressed:

1) Page 7, line 172: it would be appropriate to specify the common application considered to decide the size of the amplification mechanism modeled via FEM and reported in Table 1.

2   2) Table 2: it seems that the columns of the density and yield stress have been inverted.

3   3) In section 3, it would be useful to provide some details about the software and simulation type adopted for the FEM simulations.

4   4) Page 11, line 252: the text reports: “The variation of DAR with the output body is shown in Figure 9”. Revision is required, since Figure 9 reports the variation of DAR with the flexure hinge size.

5   5) It would be useful to provide some details about how the numerical values reported in Table 5 were chosen.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised version is acceptable to be published.