COMPACT MICRO FORCE GENERATOR WITH TANDEM LEAF SPRING AND VCA ON MICRO ROBOT FOR MICRO HARDNESS AND STIFFNESS TEST

Montree Pakkratoke, Natchapon Luekiatphaisan, Hisayuki Aoyama, Tassanai Saneponpute

Abstract

This paper presents the development of compact size force generator mechanism with voice coil actuator and piezo driven micro robot for surface hardness and stiffness investigation. This small force generator is composed of voice coil actuator and tandem leaf spring mechanism. The small force can be controlled by electrical current which is supplied to coil and positioned precisely at the balance point with the parallel leaf spring with no mechanical friction. And the full bridge strain gauges on both side of double leaf spring can detect small force which is applied to the micro indenter. This unique layout can provide good linearity and small force up to 20 mN with 0.05 mN resolution. The displacement of the indenter head also can be measured by the laser displacement sensor for monitoring the depth behaviour of the indenter during whole dwell time. Since the overall size of this force generator is compact enough to implement on the piezo driven micro robot, it can be possible to employ them in such the SEM chamber for in-situ measurement.<br />In the primary experiment, the performance of small force generator unit is compared with the hardness standard block at first and then the surface hardness distribution is investigated with the help of the micro robot as it can transport the sample material precisely with 1 &#956;m resolution.

Keywords

voice coil actuator, tandem leaf spring mechanism, strain gauge, inchworm micro robot, micro indenter

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IMEKO-TC5-2010-021.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC5 - Hardness Measurement

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