Manufacturing of multi-material compliant mechanisms using multi-material molding

Multi-material compliant mechanisms enable many new design possibilities. Significant progress has been made in the area of design and analysis of multi-material compliant mechanisms. What is now needed is a method to mass-produce such mechanisms economically. A feasible and practical way of producing such mechanisms is through multi-material molding. Devices based on compliant mechanisms usually consist of compliant joints. Compliant joints in turn are created by carefully engineering interfaces between a compliant and a rigid material. This paper presents an overview of multi-material molding technology and describes feasible mold designs for creating different types of compliant joints found in multi-material compliant mechanisms. It also describes guidelines essential to successfully utilizing the multi-material molding process for creating compliant mechanisms. Finally, practical applications for the use of multi-material molding to create compliant mechanisms are demonstrated.