Design, analysis, testing and applications of two-body and three-body kinematic mounts

To my family, friends and love Blazing gratefulness From every nook and cranny of my fiery beating heart. It is with blazing gratefulness that I impart. That the winding paths I have travelled, and uncharted waters on which I am yet to embark. With south of me the splendor of the white Alps and north the boundless flat orange horizons that ignited my spark. All of this would merely be but a smoldering ember without the smiles, candor, love and warmth that you upon me bestow. Therefore it is to you, my radiant family, friends and love, that the increasingly brilliant burning of my flame I owe. Hence it is with a glistening smile and ardent thank you that I desire. To briefly stand still and let you know how much I appreciate and marvel at our dazzling bonfire. Abstract iii Abstract Kinematic couplings are used when two rigid bodies need to be repeatedly and accurately positioned with respect to each other. They allow for sub-micron positioning repeatability by suppressing play and reducing strains in the bodies. Typical applications are lens mounts, work piece mounts and docking interfaces for astrophysics, semiconductor and metrology applications. This thesis generalizes the well-known concept of two-body kinematic couplings to three-body kinematic mounts. The goal of the thesis is: To pave the way for high precision assembly using kinematic mounts by providing an exhaustive catalogue of all two-body and three-body kinematic mounts and to test key configurations experimentally. The main contributions of this thesis are: ƒ State of the art survey of essential knowledge in the field of kinematic couplings. ƒ Rigorous problem statement for the design of two-body and three-body kinematic mounts. ƒ Rigorous limitation of the scope of research to three-body kinematic mounts whose contact points lie exclusively on three convergent orthogonal lines and whose constraint lines are parallel to these lines. ƒ An exhaustive catalogue of three-body kinematic mounts consisting of seven configurations in 3D and nine configurations in 2D. ƒ An exhaustive set of four conditions satisfied by three-body 3-dimensional kinematic mounts. ƒ An exhaustive set of seven conditions satisfied by three-body 2-dimensional kinematic mounts. ƒ Realization of a two-body kinematic mount and a three-body kinematic mount in metal, and precise measurement of their positioning accuracy on a 3D coordinate measurement machine at the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology. Positioning error of 0.2 microns and 5 Pradian achieved with two-body kinematic …