STRUCTURES, vol.26, pp.396-405, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
This paper presents different modeling technique approaches of the single-link uniform cross-sectional shape manipulators. Three different materials of manipulators which are epoxy-glass and carbon-fiber for composite manipulators and steel manipulator are considered for both simulation and experimental analyses. Three different modelling techniques which are solid, beam and shell models are used for both manipulators. The study consists of three steps. In the first step, the manipulators are modeled in ANSYS for finite element analyses. In the second step, modal analysis is carried out in order to find the frequencies of the manipulators. In the third step, transient analysis is performed to investigate the success of different modeling approaches with experimental results. It is observed that the simulation results with three different modeling approaches have well matched with the experimental results and then, elapsed times for the transient analyses are investigated to find the appropriate modeling technique for the manipulator.