Development of a Multi-Piece Multi-Gate Mold for Manufacturing a Flapping Wing Drive-Mechanism

摘要

A successful flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) requires development of a lightweight drive mechanism to convert the continuous rotary motion to oscillatory flapping motion. Molded compliant drive mechanisms are an attractive design option due to manufacturing scalability and reduction in parts. The unique characteristics of this mechanism require development of a complex multipiece, multigate mold design. This paper describes a systematic approach for determining the part shape and size, optimizing the mold pieces, and placing the gates on the multipiece mold. The novel aspects of this work include (1) selecting noncritical shape features to optimize the mold design and (2) the use of sacrificial structural elements to reduce the impact of the weld lines on the structural performance. The mold developed was utilized to realize a working flapping-wing MAV.