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
In recent years, micro/nano mechanics test technology has been
accepted by many researchers, and the most representative is the
nano-indentation and scratch test which has been widely used
in material science, biomedicine, semiconductor, nanotechnology,
and so on [1]. It has important significance to investigate the
mechanical behavior of materials from micro- to nano-scales [2].
What is more, it is a promising method to reveal the mechanism of
deformation and failure of materials with further development.
Nano-indentation and scratch test technology mainly involves
the precision-driven and precision-detection technology. Usually,
use load and displacement sensors with high resolution to realize
precision detection, such as the capacitive sensor, strain gauge
force sensor, laser displacement sensor, and so on. For precision-
driven, there are also many choices, for example, electromagnetic
driver, shape memory alloy driver, micro-film, micro-beam and
so on. Up to now, many of the indentation devices were large
because of the use of electromagnetic and electrostatic drivers
which need complex control. Due to the size limitation of the
SEM and TEM, these large indentation devices cannot be used to
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13578913791; fax: +86 85095428.
E-mail address: hwzhao@jlu.edu.cn (H. Zhao).
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
realize in situ indentation test which can observe the deformation
and failure process of materials. So it is necessary to find more
suitable driving mechanism to ensure the miniaturization of
the indentation device. In this paper, a kind of precision-driven
unit realized by piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge was
presented. Piezoelectric actuator takes many advantages of small
size, unlimited resolution, large force generation, fast response,
low power consumption and no wear. The converse piezoelectric
effect is used, which is a primary electromechanical effect, where
the induced strain is proportional to the applied electric field, while
the electrostrictive effect is a secondary phenomenon, whereby the
induced strain is proportional to the square of the applied field [3].
Also the flexure hinge can overcome the shortcomings such as
friction, need of lubrication and backlash which usually exist in
the conventional mechanisms with sliding and rolling bearings. So,
combination of piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge can easily
be achieved the purpose of precision-driven and miniaturization.
There are many valuable experience and practice by previous
research. Meli and Thalmann designed a linear motion platform
based on piezoelectric actuator and flexure hinge, extending
the working range of the AFM [4]. Elmustafa and Max Lagally
used the finite element method to analyze the motion response,
stiffness, load capacity of a nano-positioning device used for
precision milling [5]. Nicolae Lobontiu and Jeffrey Paine introduced
 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81
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
design of piezoelectric mechanism, large motion distance and high
resolution are two important goals. But they are also contradictory.
Usually, when the motion distance is large, the resolution is low
and vice versa. For the application in the indentation device, about
10 µm motion distance is enough and higher resolution is required.
This sets the request to the design of the flexure hinge as well
as the choice and control of the piezoelectric actuator. In this
paper, based on the early research foundation on the piezoelectric-
driven and flexure hinge, the precision-driven unit for nano-
indentation and scratch was designed here. The effect of key
parameters—the thickness and width on the performances such
as displacement output, maximum stress, frequency response was
analyzed with finite element software ANSYS. Then performances
of the designed unit were tested and analyzed. At last, the designed
unit was assembled on a self-made indentation device. Preliminary
indentation experiments proved that the unit worked well.
2. Design of flexure hinge
The stiffness and output displacement are two important
parameters of the flexure hinge, which are also contradictory to
each other. Usually, for the indentation and scratch test, larger
deformation and higher stiffness are both required, which are
very important to ensure the penetration and the quick response
during the test. So, the choice of the structure and material of the
flexure hinge is important. Here, 65 Mn was chosen, which had
numerous advantages of cheap price, high sensitivity, low elastic
lag, fatigue resistance, etc. Compared with circle, corner-filleted
leaf, and ellipse flexure hinge, right angle flexure hinge has many
advantages of more sensitive, easy to process, simple, and so on [8].
Also, right angle flexure hinge was chosen here, which was shown
in Fig. 1.
In Fig. 1, the structure consists of two parallel flexure hinges
which could be regarded as a spring. During the nano-indentation
and scratch test, the flexure hinge is used as precision transmission
element and fixed on a lateral plate through thread. There are
three important geometric parameters for the design of the flexure
hinge, the length L, the thickness t and the width w . In order to
analyze the structure, the mechanical model of a single flexure
hinge is simplified as shown in Fig. 2 where F is the output force of
the piezoelectric actuator and y is the deformation of the hinge.
According to the related theory, the deformation y can be
expressed
FL3
y=
16E w t 3
where E is the elastic modulus.
77
Fig. 2. The simplified mechanical model.
Fig. 3. The mesh and refine.
In order to ensure the miniaturization of indentation and
scratch device, the length L here was given a fixed value. Effects of
the thickness t and the width w on performances of flexure hinge
were analyzed in part 3.
3. Finite element analysis
As shown in Fig. 1, the thickness t and the width w are two
important geometric parameters for the design of the flexure
hinge. Here, finite element method which was accepted by more
and more researchers was used to analyze the effect of the two
parameters on the performance of the flexure hinge because of
its accuracy and convenient. The finite element analysis software
used here was ANSYS 10.0. Parameters of the simulation were
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
selected as mesh of the flexure hinge which was imported by the
CATIA model file. To improve the accuracy of simulation, the model
was refined at the key part of flexure hinge, the two parallel thin
plates. The result of the mesh generation was shown in Fig. 3.
3.1. Static analysis
The static analysis of the flexure hinge was carried out
according to the constraints and force shown in Fig. 2. Various
thickness t and width w have been considered in this work to
analyze the output performance respectively. The thickness t was
from 0.5 to 1.0 mm and the step was 0.1 mm. For all simulations,
the force F = 100 N and the width w = 8 mm. The simulation
results were shown in Figs. 4–6. Fig. 4 was the displacement of
the parallel flexure hinges center for different thickness t. Fig. 5
was the maximum stress of the flexure hinge. Fig. 6 was the stress
distribution of the flexure hinge when t = 0.7 mm and w = 8 mm.
According to Figs. 4 and 5, it was obvious to get the conclusion
that both the output displacement and the maximum stress
decreased when the thickness t increased.
While the maximum stress was less than permissible stress of
Spring Steel 65 Mn being 432 MPa for t changed from 0.5 mm to
1.0 mm. According to the definition of stiffness, stiffness K can be
expressed by equation
K = F /y (2)
where F is the applied force and y is the displacement responding
(1) to the force. So the stiffness of the different thickness t can be
obtained which was shown in Fig. 7, and the stiffness was a
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. 5. Curve between maximum stress and thickness of the flexure hinge.
Fig. 6. Stress distribution of the flexure hinge.
Fig. 7. Curve between stiffness and thickness of the flexure hinge.
Using the same method, effects of the different width w from
5 to 10 mm step being 1 mm on performance of the flexure hinge
were analyzed under the condition that the thickness t = 0.7 mm.
Also, the displacement, the maximum stress and the stiffness were
obtained, which were shown in Figs. 8–10 respectively. The same
as thickness t, both the output displacement and the maximum
Fig. 8. Curve between displacement and width 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
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
first-order modal frequency increased when the width w increased
from 5 to 10 mm. The first three order modal shapes of the flexure
hinge under the condition that t = 0.7 mm and w = 8 mm were
shown in Fig. 11.
Although both thickness t and width w affected the modal
frequency of the flexure hinge, the first-order modal frequency was
very high which indicated that the flexure hinge had good stability
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

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).
4. Experiments
4.1. Principle of precision-driven unit
The assembled diagram of the precision-driven unit was shown
in Fig. 12. It mainly consisted of two parts, the flexure hinge
and the piezoelectric actuator. The flexure hinge was used as
the precision transmission element, and when the voltage was
applied to piezoelectric actuator, due to the converse piezoelectric
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
β = Dr /Dmax × 100% (3)
α = Dr /n (4)
where n is the total steps in a test circle.
According to the definitions, parameters were obtained and
listed in Table 3. The average maximum output displacement
was 12.88 µm when the voltage was 120 V and the resolution
was about 0.537 µm/V. When the voltage step decreases, higher
resolution will be obtained and unlimited resolution will be
possible under ideal conditions. Though the residual displacement
and the absolute error were 0.178 µm and 1.382%, the average
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
is shown in Fig. 14. In Fig. 14, there are two curves. One is the
output displacement when the voltage increases and the other
is the one when the voltage decreases. It is obvious that the
displacement is different at the same voltage and the two curves
are not symmetrical. And the hysteresis H can be expressed
H = DDMAX /Dmax × 100%
where DDMAX is the maximum difference of displacement at the
same voltage. In Fig. 14, the maximum difference of displacement
is about 1.15 µm at voltage 45 V and the maximum output
displacement is 12.92 µm. According to Eq. (1), the hysteresis
is about 8.91%. While for special application, some measures for
example closed-loop control should be taken to decrease the
hysteresis influence.
4.4. Indentation experiments
The designed precision-driven unit was assembled on a self-
made indentation device. Indentation experiments of SiC was
carried out by the device and the raw experiment results was
shown in Fig. 15. From the obtained curves, we can see that
In this paper, a kind of precision-driven unit used for nano-
indentation and scratch test was designed and analyzed. The
unit mainly consisted of the piezoelectric actuator and flexure
hinge. The mechanical model of the flexure hinge was established.
Two important parameters of the flexure hinge were analyzed
by the finite element analysis software ANSYS 10.0. And then,
(5) experiments of precision-driven unit were carried out. Via the
experimental results, performances and hysteresis were analyzed.
Finally, the designed precision-driven unit was assembled on
a self-made indentation device and preliminary indentation
experiments were done and analyzed.
Based on these work, the conclusions were drawn as following,
(1) The thickness t and width w were two important parameters
for the design of the flexure hinge and they would affect the
performance of the flexure hinge. The output displacement
was a monotonic decreasing function of the thickness t and
width w . while stiffness was a monotonic increasing function
of the thickness t and width w . The width w affected the
first-order mode frequency of the flexure hinge more than the
thickness t. But almost all the first-order modal frequencies
of flexure hinges with different thickness t and width w were
 H. Huang et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 31 (2012) 76–81
higher than 3800 Hz which indicated that flexure hinges had
good stability at low frequency condition.
(2) The average maximum output displacement was 12.88 µm
when the voltage was 120 V and the resolution was about
0.537 µm/V. Though the residual displacement and the
absolute error were 0.178 µm and 1.382%, the average error
of each step was just 3.71 nm. In addition, the precision-
driven unit has hysteresis. So it is required to take measures
to decrease hysteresis for special application.
(3) The designed unit worked well in the self-made indentation
device. So it is feasible to use piezoelectric mechanism to
realize loading and unloading process in the indentation
device.
The future work is to design a compact nano-indentation device
integrating the designed precision-driven unit and to realize in situ
indentation experiments in the SEM and TEM.
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 50905073), Research Fund for
the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No.
200801831024), Young Scientist Fund of Jilin Province of China
81
(Grant No. 20090101), Research Fund of the Ministry of Science
and Technology of China (Grant No. 2009GJB10029), and The
International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Project
(Grant No. 2010DFA72000).
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