Final design interpretation of the complex-shaped beam optimizations for compliant mechanisms

Compliant mechanisms are one-piece devices that combine the features of both structures and mechanisms. Compliant mechanism design solutions were identified by using evolutionary topology optimization, a complex-shaped beam element formulation in conjunction with the ground structure approach, and a parametrization concept based on graph- theory. This work addresses the final design interpretation of the optimization results. Three different methods are presented and the parallel gripper problem is used to address the question of how our contribution affects the final design and the design interpretation efficiency.