... or aesthetical requirements. In several industries, variation simulation is used to predict assembly variation in the development phase. This analysis is usually done under room temperature conditions only. However, for some materials, such as plastics, the thermal expansion can be significant in the intended...

... designing configurations that exploit thermal expansion effects in elastic material when appropriate portions of the mechanism structure are heated or are subjected to an electric potential. This paper presents a new structural optimization method for the design of compliant thermal actuators based...