A Compliant Straight-Line Shock Absorption Mechanism Using a Viscoelastic Pseudo-Rigid Body Model

A compliant suspension linkage based on the Peaucellier mechanism is presented. The suspension uses large-deflection viscoelastic beams to achieve straight-line motion and to provide energy dissipation. Kinematics and force analysis of the linkage are presented. In preparing to simulate the system dynamics, it was noticed that no adaptation of the pseudo-rigid body model for viscoelastic beams had been previously presented. Therefore, a new general approach for modeling viscoelastic, large-deflection beams in compliant mechanisms is described within the context of the pseudo-rigid-body model. This method is applied in simulation of the Peaucellier-based compliant suspension under a variety of input conditions.