Flexure

Using compound flexures, complex motion profiles with specific degrees of freedom and relatively long travel distances are possible.

In the field of precision engineering (especially high-precision motion control), flexures have several key advantages.

[4] Additionally, conventional bearings or linear slides often exhibit positioning hysteresis due to backlash and friction.

[5] Flexures are able to achieve much lower resolution limits (in some cases measured in the nanometer scale), because they depend on bending and/or torsion of flexible elements, rather than surface interaction of many parts (as with a ball bearing).

Due to their mode of action, flexures are used for limited range motions and cannot replace long-travel or continuous-rotation adjustments.

A flexure pivot, utilized in place of bearings for its frictionless adjustment properties.
A living hinge (a type of flexure), on the lid of a Tic Tac box. This hinge has one compliant degree of freedom .
Example compound flexure design with nested linkage [ 3 ]
A leaf spring suspension is an example of a flexure design in automotive engineering .
Drive wheel from the Mars Exploration Rovers , with integral suspension flexures.
Drive wheel from the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity , with integral suspension flexures.