Design and Theoretical - Experimental Analysis of a Flexure Pivot for a Propulsion System Test Stand

By arrangement of flexure-load cell columns in the six-component test stands, the thrust vector components of force and moment of a propulsion system can be measured. In this research, the main considerations in the flexure design process of a six component test stand is introduced. Also, a Flexure with new geometric structure to take account of these considerations is proposed. Then, by using computational constrained multi-dimensional optimization of direct methods, geometrical dimensions of the flexure are calculated. In the next step, finite element analysis is carried out on designed flexure and its results are compared with results of the analytical solution. To validate the results of the theoretical solution, natural frequencies of the flexure and buckling critical loads are measured experimentally. Based on the acceptable correlation of the theoretical and experimental results, it can be said that the proposed flexure is a good choice for using in a propulsion system six - component test stand.