Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81

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Journal of Manufacturing Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmansys

Technical paper

Design and analysis of the precision-driven unit for nano-indentation and

scratch test
Hu Huang a , Hongwei Zhao a,∗ , Zhichao Ma a , Leilei Hu a , Jie Yang a , Guoquan Shi b , Caixia Ni c ,
Zhelong Pei c
a
School of Mechanical Science & Engineering, Jilin University, Renmin Street 5988, Changchun, Jilin 130025, China
b
Changchun University of Science and Technology, China
c
Changchun Hi-Tech Innovation Service Center, China

article info abstract

Article history: This paper presents a kind of precision-driven unit consisting of the piezoelectric actuator and flexure
Available online 23 February 2011 hinge to realize precision motion of the indenter in a self-made indentation device. Two important
parameters of the flexure hinge, thickness t and width w , were analyzed via finite element method and
the results showed that the output displacement was a monotonic decreasing function of thickness t
and width w . The stiffness was a monotonic increasing function of thickness t and width w . But almost
all the first-order modal frequencies of flexure hinges with different thickness t and width w were
higher than 3800 Hz which indicated that flexure hinges had good stability at low frequency condition.
Output performance of the unit was tested and analyzed. Experimental results showed that the average
maximum output displacement was 12.88 µm when the voltage was 120 V and the resolution was
about 0.537 µm/V. The hysteresis was very small and it was about 8.91%. At last, the designed unit was
assembled on a self-made indentation device. Preliminary indentation experiments proved that the unit
worked well. So, the piezoelectric mechanism can be used in the indentation device and it is beneficial to
ensure the miniaturization and realize in situ indentation experiments in the SEM and TEM.
© 2011 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction realize in situ indentation test which can observe the deformation
and failure process of materials. So it is necessary to find more
In recent years, micro/nano mechanics test technology has been suitable driving mechanism to ensure the miniaturization of
accepted by many researchers, and the most representative is the the indentation device. In this paper, a kind of precision-driven
nano-indentation and scratch test which has been widely used unit realized by piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge was
in material science, biomedicine, semiconductor, nanotechnology, presented. Piezoelectric actuator takes many advantages of small
and so on [1]. It has important significance to investigate the size, unlimited resolution, large force generation, fast response,
mechanical behavior of materials from micro- to nano-scales [2]. low power consumption and no wear. The converse piezoelectric
What is more, it is a promising method to reveal the mechanism of effect is used, which is a primary electromechanical effect, where
deformation and failure of materials with further development. the induced strain is proportional to the applied electric field, while
Nano-indentation and scratch test technology mainly involves the electrostrictive effect is a secondary phenomenon, whereby the
the precision-driven and precision-detection technology. Usually, induced strain is proportional to the square of the applied field [3].
use load and displacement sensors with high resolution to realize Also the flexure hinge can overcome the shortcomings such as
precision detection, such as the capacitive sensor, strain gauge friction, need of lubrication and backlash which usually exist in
force sensor, laser displacement sensor, and so on. For precision- the conventional mechanisms with sliding and rolling bearings. So,
driven, there are also many choices, for example, electromagnetic combination of piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge can easily
driver, shape memory alloy driver, micro-film, micro-beam and be achieved the purpose of precision-driven and miniaturization.
so on. Up to now, many of the indentation devices were large There are many valuable experience and practice by previous
because of the use of electromagnetic and electrostatic drivers research. Meli and Thalmann designed a linear motion platform
which need complex control. Due to the size limitation of the based on piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge, extending
SEM and TEM, these large indentation devices cannot be used to the working range of the AFM [4]. Elmustafa and Max Lagally
used the finite element method to analyze the motion response,
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13578913791; fax: +86 85095428. stiffness, load capacity of a nano-positioning device used for
E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Zhao). precision milling [5]. Nicolae Lobontiu and Jeffrey Paine introduced
0278-6125/$ – see front matter © 2011 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmsy.2011.01.005
 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81 77

Fig. 2. The simplified mechanical model.

Fig. 1. CATIA model of the flexure hinge.

the compliance closed-form equations to analyze the flexibility,

motion precision and stress characterization of parabolic and
hyperbolic flexure hinges. In addition, they also used the finite
element analysis and experimental method to check the model [6].
Tian et al. presented the closed-form compliance equations for the
filleted V-shaped flexure hinges and analyzed the effect of key
parameters on performance of the flexure hinge [7].
However, there has been relatively little research on using
piezoelectric-driven mechanism and flexure hinge to realize the
loading and unloading process of indentation device. For the Fig. 3. The mesh and refine.
design of piezoelectric mechanism, large motion distance and high
resolution are two important goals. But they are also contradictory. In order to ensure the miniaturization of indentation and
Usually, when the motion distance is large, the resolution is low scratch device, the length L here was given a fixed value. Effects of
and vice versa. For the application in the indentation device, about the thickness t and the width w on performances of flexure hinge
10 µm motion distance is enough and higher resolution is required. were analyzed in part 3.
This sets the request to the design of the flexure hinge as well
as the choice and control of the piezoelectric actuator. In this 3. Finite element analysis
paper, based on the early research foundation on the piezoelectric-
driven and flexure hinge, the precision-driven unit for nano- As shown in Fig. 1, the thickness t and the width w are two
indentation and scratch was designed here. The effect of key important geometric parameters for the design of the flexure
parameters—the thickness and width on the performances such hinge. Here, finite element method which was accepted by more
as displacement output, maximum stress, frequency response was and more researchers was used to analyze the effect of the two
analyzed with finite element software ANSYS. Then performances parameters on the performance of the flexure hinge because of
of the designed unit were tested and analyzed. At last, the designed its accuracy and convenient. The finite element analysis software
unit was assembled on a self-made indentation device. Preliminary used here was ANSYS 10.0. Parameters of the simulation were
indentation experiments proved that the unit worked well. as follows. The elastic modulus was 206 GPa. The density was
7.854 × 103 Kg m−3 . The Poisson ratio was 0.288. Solide45 was
2. Design of flexure hinge selected as mesh of the flexure hinge which was imported by the
CATIA model file. To improve the accuracy of simulation, the model
The stiffness and output displacement are two important was refined at the key part of flexure hinge, the two parallel thin
parameters of the flexure hinge, which are also contradictory to plates. The result of the mesh generation was shown in Fig. 3.
each other. Usually, for the indentation and scratch test, larger
deformation and higher stiffness are both required, which are 3.1. Static analysis
very important to ensure the penetration and the quick response
during the test. So, the choice of the structure and material of the The static analysis of the flexure hinge was carried out
flexure hinge is important. Here, 65 Mn was chosen, which had according to the constraints and force shown in Fig. 2. Various
numerous advantages of cheap price, high sensitivity, low elastic thickness t and width w have been considered in this work to
lag, fatigue resistance, etc. Compared with circle, corner-filleted analyze the output performance respectively. The thickness t was
leaf, and ellipse flexure hinge, right angle flexure hinge has many from 0.5 to 1.0 mm and the step was 0.1 mm. For all simulations,
advantages of more sensitive, easy to process, simple, and so on [8]. the force F = 100 N and the width w = 8 mm. The simulation
Also, right angle flexure hinge was chosen here, which was shown results were shown in Figs. 4–6. Fig. 4 was the displacement of
in Fig. 1. the parallel flexure hinges center for different thickness t. Fig. 5
In Fig. 1, the structure consists of two parallel flexure hinges was the maximum stress of the flexure hinge. Fig. 6 was the stress
which could be regarded as a spring. During the nano-indentation distribution of the flexure hinge when t = 0.7 mm and w = 8 mm.
and scratch test, the flexure hinge is used as precision transmission According to Figs. 4 and 5, it was obvious to get the conclusion
element and fixed on a lateral plate through thread. There are that both the output displacement and the maximum stress
three important geometric parameters for the design of the flexure decreased when the thickness t increased.
hinge, the length L, the thickness t and the width w . In order to While the maximum stress was less than permissible stress of
analyze the structure, the mechanical model of a single flexure Spring Steel 65 Mn being 432 MPa for t changed from 0.5 mm to
hinge is simplified as shown in Fig. 2 where F is the output force of 1.0 mm. According to the definition of stiffness, stiffness K can be
the piezoelectric actuator and y is the deformation of the hinge. expressed by equation
According to the related theory, the deformation y can be
expressed K = F /y (2)
where F is the applied force and y is the displacement responding
FL3
y= (1) to the force. So the stiffness of the different thickness t can be
16E w t 3 obtained which was shown in Fig. 7, and the stiffness was a
where E is the elastic modulus. monotonic increasing function of the thickness t.
78 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81

Fig. 4. Curve between displacement and thickness of the flexure hinge. Fig. 8. Curve between displacement and width of the flexure hinge.

Fig. 5. Curve between maximum stress and thickness of the flexure hinge.
Fig. 9. Curve between maximum stress and width of the flexure hinge.

Fig. 10. Curve between stiffness and width of the flexure hinge.

stress decreased when the width w increased. And the stiffness

Fig. 6. Stress distribution of the flexure hinge. increased when the width w increased.

3.2. Modal analysis

It is well known that modal analysis is one of the effective meth-

ods to examine dynamic performance of mechanical structures and
systems. Based on the established model shown in Fig. 2 and the
mesh method shown in Fig. 3, the modal analysis of flexure hinge
was carried out using ANASY 10.0 software. The same as static
analysis, various thickness t and width w have been considered in
this work to analyze the effect respectively. The first three order
modal frequencies of the flexure hinge with different thickness t
and width w were shown in Tables 1 and 2 respectively. It is noted
that, the first-order modal frequencies were almost the same for
different thickness t and the value was close to 3800 Hz. while the
Fig. 7. Curve between stiffness and thickness of the flexure hinge.
first-order modal frequency increased when the width w increased
from 5 to 10 mm. The first three order modal shapes of the flexure
Using the same method, effects of the different width w from hinge under the condition that t = 0.7 mm and w = 8 mm were
5 to 10 mm step being 1 mm on performance of the flexure hinge shown in Fig. 11.
were analyzed under the condition that the thickness t = 0.7 mm. Although both thickness t and width w affected the modal
Also, the displacement, the maximum stress and the stiffness were frequency of the flexure hinge, the first-order modal frequency was
obtained, which were shown in Figs. 8–10 respectively. The same very high which indicated that the flexure hinge had good stability
as thickness t, both the output displacement and the maximum at low frequency condition.
 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81 79

Table 1
The first three order modal frequencies for different thickness t.
t = 0.5 mm t = 0.6 mm t = 0.7 mm t = 0.8 mm t = 0.9 mm t = 1.0 mm

1 3883.5 3886.1 3802 3784.1 3823.4 3832.2

2 4540.6 5184.7 6455 7219.9 7420.2 7596.5
3 6713.5 7076.8 7004 7500.6 8294.1 9307

Table 2
The first three order modal frequencies for different width w .
w = 5 mm w = 6 mm w = 7 mm w = 8 mm w = 9 mm w = 10 mm
1 2835.9 3044.4 3422.8 3802 4236.2 4622.6
2 6646.7 7056.8 6356.9 6455 6244.5 6295.4
3 6982.3 7060.9 7006.5 7004 7384 7178.5

Fig. 12. The precision-driven unit.

effect, it would extend and then push the flexure hinge to output
precision elastic deformation so as to realize precision motion of
the diamond indenter which was fixed in the right bulge.

4.2. Output performance test

The flexure hinge was processed through wire cutting under

the condition that the thickness t was 0.7 mm and the width
w was 8 mm. The multi-channel power supply was used to
support the input voltage signal to the piezoelectric actuator.
The output displacement was measured by Keyence LK-G10 laser
displacement sensor with resolution of 10 nm. The experiment was
carried out at the stepping mode and the step was 5 V while the
maximum input voltage was 120 V. So the loading process was 24
steps and the unloading process was also 24 steps in a test circle.
The results of five experiments were shown in Fig. 13. To facilitate
observation and comparison, different sampling frequencies were
selected and that resulted in not synchronism of the curves. The
five experiments showed good output stability in the test circle.
The output displacement of each step was nearly the same. But
there was residual displacement in all the circles which derived
from the thermal drift as well as other factors coming from the
environment.
In order to evaluate performance of the unit, parameters were
defined as follows. Dmax was the maximum output displacement.
Dr was the residual displacement. β was the absolute error. α was
the average error of each step. And then, β and α can be expressed
Fig. 11. Modal shapes of the flexure hinge. (a) First modal shape (3802 Hz),
(b) Second modal shape (6455 Hz), (c) Third modal shape (7004 Hz).
β = Dr /Dmax × 100% (3)
α = Dr /n (4)
4. Experiments where n is the total steps in a test circle.
According to the definitions, parameters were obtained and
4.1. Principle of precision-driven unit listed in Table 3. The average maximum output displacement
was 12.88 µm when the voltage was 120 V and the resolution
The assembled diagram of the precision-driven unit was shown was about 0.537 µm/V. When the voltage step decreases, higher
in Fig. 12. It mainly consisted of two parts, the flexure hinge resolution will be obtained and unlimited resolution will be
and the piezoelectric actuator. The flexure hinge was used as possible under ideal conditions. Though the residual displacement
the precision transmission element, and when the voltage was and the absolute error were 0.178 µm and 1.382%, the average
applied to piezoelectric actuator, due to the converse piezoelectric error of each step was just 3.71 nm.
80 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81

Table 3
Experimental data of the five test circles.
Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5 Average

Dmax (µm) 12.92 12.92 12.86 12.84 12.86 12.88

Dr (µm) 0.17 0.22 0.15 0.18 0.17 0.178
β 1.316% 1.703% 1.166% 1.402% 1.322% 1.382%
α (nm) 3.54 4.58 3.13 3.75 3.54 3.71
Resolution (µm/5 v) 0.538 0.538 0.536 0.535 0.536 0.537

Fig. 13. Output displacement of the precision-driven unit.

Fig. 15. Indentation experiments of SiC.

the indentation device had good reproducibility. Though the

indentation curve maybe not accuracy, the designed precision-
driven unit worked well which indicated that the design was
successful. That was to say the precision driving mechanism using
piezoelectric-driven mechanism and flexure hinge can be used in
the fields of nano-indentation, nano-scratch, precision positioning
as well as precision manufacturing.
In addition, this work was just a exploration to validate the
feasibility that using piezoelectric-driven mechanism and flexure
hinge to realize the loading and unloading of the diamond
tool. Compared with electromagnetic and electrostatic drivers,
piezoelectric device takes advantages of small size, short and
Fig. 14. Hysteresis analysis.
simple transmission chain and easy to control. So it is a good choice
to select piezoelectric device to design the compact indentation
device which can be used to realize in situ indentation test in the
4.3. Hysteresis analysis SEM and TEM.

Hysteresis is an inherent property of piezoelectric ceramic. 5. Conclusions

Piezoelectric actuator is an important part of the precision-driven
unit. So hysteresis is also an inherent property of the unit which
In this paper, a kind of precision-driven unit used for nano-
is shown in Fig. 14. In Fig. 14, there are two curves. One is the
indentation and scratch test was designed and analyzed. The
output displacement when the voltage increases and the other
unit mainly consisted of the piezoelectric actuator and flexure
is the one when the voltage decreases. It is obvious that the
hinge. The mechanical model of the flexure hinge was established.
displacement is different at the same voltage and the two curves
Two important parameters of the flexure hinge were analyzed
are not symmetrical. And the hysteresis H can be expressed
by the finite element analysis software ANSYS 10.0. And then,
H = DDMAX /Dmax × 100% (5) experiments of precision-driven unit were carried out. Via the
experimental results, performances and hysteresis were analyzed.
where DDMAX is the maximum difference of displacement at the
Finally, the designed precision-driven unit was assembled on
same voltage. In Fig. 14, the maximum difference of displacement
a self-made indentation device and preliminary indentation
is about 1.15 µm at voltage 45 V and the maximum output
experiments were done and analyzed.
displacement is 12.92 µm. According to Eq. (1), the hysteresis
Based on these work, the conclusions were drawn as following,
is about 8.91%. While for special application, some measures for
example closed-loop control should be taken to decrease the (1) The thickness t and width w were two important parameters
hysteresis influence. for the design of the flexure hinge and they would affect the
performance of the flexure hinge. The output displacement
4.4. Indentation experiments was a monotonic decreasing function of the thickness t and
width w . while stiffness was a monotonic increasing function
The designed precision-driven unit was assembled on a self- of the thickness t and width w . The width w affected the
made indentation device. Indentation experiments of SiC was first-order mode frequency of the flexure hinge more than the
carried out by the device and the raw experiment results was thickness t. But almost all the first-order modal frequencies
shown in Fig. 15. From the obtained curves, we can see that of flexure hinges with different thickness t and width w were
 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81 81

higher than 3800 Hz which indicated that flexure hinges had (Grant No. 20090101), Research Fund of the Ministry of Science
good stability at low frequency condition. and Technology of China (Grant No. 2009GJB10029), and The
(2) The average maximum output displacement was 12.88 µm International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Project
when the voltage was 120 V and the resolution was about (Grant No. 2010DFA72000).
0.537 µm/V. Though the residual displacement and the
absolute error were 0.178 µm and 1.382%, the average error References
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