Compliant Components
by
Bruce van Brunt
Massey University
Coauthors: Steve Panton (Dept. Mech. Engineering, University of Auckland)

A compliant component is characterized by the property that an inextensional deformation of it requires much less energy than an extensional one. Compliant components are essentially surfaces which are flexible until attached to some frame. Thin sheet metal is a paradigm for this type of component. Products such as cars and aeroplanes consist of many such components. These components are usually treated as rigid surfaces in the design phase; however, in the assembly phase it is the flexibility of the surface which mitigates fitting problems arising from minor measurement/production errors. The basic assembly problem is to determine the the most efficient means to attach a compliant component given a certain amount of error in the system. In order to address such a problem it is necessary to determine the available deformations at each stage of assembly.

Compliant components can be modelled by partial differential equations of the Monge- Ampère type, and the characteristics on the solution surface play a significant rôle in the physical interpretation. In this talk we consider a simple Cauchy problem, the extent to which the initial data determine the surface, and approximations of potential small deformations.

Date received: December 23, 1998