Australian Journal of Mechanical Engineering

ISSN: 1448-4846 (Print) 2204-2253 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tmec20

Design of multifunctional compliant forceps for

medical application

Libu George B & R. Bharanidaran

To cite this article: Libu George B & R. Bharanidaran (2020): Design of multifunctional
compliant forceps for medical application, Australian Journal of Mechanical Engineering, DOI:
10.1080/14484846.2020.1747151

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14484846.2020.1747151

Published online: 08 Apr 2020.

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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
https://doi.org/10.1080/14484846.2020.1747151

ARTICLE

Design of multifunctional compliant forceps for medical application

Libu George B and R. Bharanidaran
School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Recent advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery, multifunctional instruments are essential to Received 25 October 2019
improve the efficiency of the surgical procedure. Surgical instruments with combination of wire Accepted 17 March 2020
and links demonstrate high performance, but fabrication and assembly of the instruments are KEYWORDS
challenging. This open the way for alternate design, and compliant mechanism is the appro- MIS; compliant mechanism;
priate choice. Compliant mechanism is the flexible mechanism that transfer loads from one FEM
point to another through elastic body deformation. This research paper introduces the novel
design of compliant forceps, which can cut and collect tissues. Forceps require very high force
to cut the tissues and less force to collect the tissues. The concept is developed with respect to
the requirement, where switching of functions can be obtained by applying respective input
actuation. The concepts of compliant forceps are converted to the realistic model using
parameterisation technique. Structural performance of compliant forceps is investigated
through the finite element method (FEM). FEM is used to measure the cutting force and
grasping force.

1. Introduction to design new surgical tool with multifunctional cap-

Recent advancement of medical field drives the engineers
to perform the collaborative innovation between designs
and manufacturing technologies, and also motivates to
concurrent innovation of multiple sciences. Past two
decades, Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) excelled
over traditional open surgery. MIS is performed through
small incision with the help of imaging or other suppor-
tive techniques. On contrary to open surgery, MIS
reduces the trauma for the patient, less pain, less cos-
metic scar, and quick recovery time, shorter hospital
stay, cost-effective, and reduces the post-operative risks
(Ponsky, Khosla, and Ponsky 2012).
Presently, various advanced and optimised surgical
procedures are adopted to make way for efficient MIS.
Researchers are trying to develop the new design of
surgical tools to improve the efficiency of the surgery.
Combining or integrating the number of surgical tools
into single functional tool makes more efficient surgical
procedure. In case of laparoscopy, dual channelled
endoscope is used with support of video imaging
through small incisions approximately 5–15 mm of
diameter (Vecchio, MacFayden, and Palazzo 2000).
On the other hand, surgeon must be highly skilled to
perform the surgery with video-imaging systems. It is
very clear that these procedures provide superior ben-
efits to the patients because it requires small skin inci-
sions for smaller diameter instruments. The complexity
is developing the smaller dimeter instruments which
deploy as a functional tool after it reaches the surgical
site (Aguirre and Frecker 2008). Success of MIS stresses
abilities. Design of multifunctional surgical tools is
highly complex due to spatial constraints and multiple
functions. In general, instruments used in MIS are
having small-assembled rigid bodies and wires or
push rod to actuate the instruments. The limitations
of these instruments are lack in dexterity, poor vision,
less force feedback, poor ergonomics, and highly com-
plicated movements (Talamini and Hanly 2005).
Multifunctional forceps are developed with high-
quality imaging system to overcome these limitations.
These systems lack force feedback, bulky and very
expensive. Several researchers have therefore tried to
develop forceps using compliant mechanisms that
offer numerous potential advantages over conven-
tional instruments. Compliant forceps based on
mechanisms allow high accuracy and controlled com-
plex movement (Kota et al. 2005). Compliant mechan-
ism is a monolithic flexible structure that delivers the
desired motion by undergoing elastic body deforma-
tion equal to the rigid body motions in a conventional
mechanism (Kota et al. 1999). The mechanism is
designed to be flexible enough to transmit motion
between adjacent links. However, they are rigid
enough to withstand the external loads. A traditional
rigid body consists of rigid links and joints, whereas
compliant mechanism has links and flexure hinges
that is called as flexible mechanism. Compliant
mechanism is promising in mechanism with small
applications and rotations. The common advantages
of compliant mechanism over traditional rigid-body
mechanisms include elimination of friction, wear and

CONTACT Libu George B george.libu@yahoo.com

© 2020 Engineers Australia
2 L. GEORGE B AND R. BHARANIDARAN
backlash, also assemble free, and potentially offer less
weight. In which, the distributed structure throughout
the compliant mechanism provides a smooth defor-
mation field, which reduces the stress concentration.
Ananthasuresh (1994) also concluded that the fully
compliant devices are much easier to fabricate than
conventional mechanisms and offer better resilience to
mechanical overloading and shock absorption. There
are different practices and approaches to develop com-
pliant mechanism designs such as mechanism synth-
esis, pseudo-rigid body model (Howell 2001),
optimisation technique, inverse methods, and intui-
tive method (Bharanidaran and Ramesh 2014, 2017).
This paper develops a new multifunctional compliant
mechanism forceps and its structural performance is
investigated. This compliant gripper is designed for per-
forming the functions of forceps and scissors. In MIS,
combining two different tools reduce the size and opera-
tional time period. Overall size of the gripper is 5 mm in
diameter and 15 mm in length. Miniaturisations of
devices are quite challenging to achieve the required
displacement and force to perform surgery. Surgeon
must feel the functional force (cutting and grasping
force) during the operation. Compliant structure pro-
vides better feedback of cutting and grasping action but
surgeon must be trained to realise the additional force
feedback, but this is also an additional sensing capability
of compliant structures (Talamini and Hanly 2005).
Highly precise gripper is developed with unique capabil-
ity of cutting tissues intended to reduce the repetition of
surgical procedure.
2. Materials and methods
The overall dimensions of the forceps are designed
based on the existing multi-functional forceps- scissors
(Aguirre and Frecker 2008). The design of the existing
multifunctional forceps-scissor is shown in figure 2.
The forceps are essential to achieve high structural
performance to its volume ratio and to accomplish
these forceps must deliver large deformation behaviour.
Hence, distributed compliant mechanism is more
appropriate over the lumped compliant structure.
Designing a compliant mechanism is a critical task for
the designer with large displacement in particular. In
Jaw Opening
Sheath
L2
L3
L1
L7
Figure 1. Concept and geometric parameters.
this research work, a systematic approach has been
developed to design a compliant mechanism-based
gripper for surgical applications.
The conceptual design was developed and improved
by various researches (Culkar 2004; Frecker, Powell,
and Haluck 2005; Aguirre and Frecker 2008). The
major focus of this paper is to develop a multi-
functional forceps/scissor (MFS) with additional func-
tions. The neutral or initial positions of the forceps are
open position when outer sheath/tube moves towards
the tip, jaws of the forceps move inward as closing
position. Additionally, sheath/tube move in reversed
direction and the jaw opens further from the neutral
position. Further, torque is required to apply after grip-
ping the tissues to perform scissor function but the jaw
tip is designed with sharp edges which improve the
cutting force of scissors. The diameter of the instrument
is considered as 5 mm and overall length is 15 mm.
2.1. Design of MFS
An optimisation technique was used to determine the
geometrical parameters of the MFS. This optimisation
technique intended to provide the appropriate design
trade-off between the flexibility during jaw opening of
forceps and stiffness during cutting as scissors. In the
previous researches, they neglected the scissor func-
tion during the optimisation process. Hence, this
paper considered both the functions as forceps and
tweezers at the same time during the optimisation to
achieve the completeness of the design. Figure 1 shows
the various geometrical parameters assumed in this
process are L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6 and L7 length, and
θ and δ are inclined angle of beams, then extruding
thickness also assumed as T1 for L1 and L2, and T2 for
L4, L5 and L6. It is very clear that L3 is the beam which
deflects more compare to other segment; hence, it
requires additional input. Hence, to distribute the
stress uniformly the tapered beam is considered for
this segment. Additional, link is added and denoted as
L7 which makes the forceps as lever when outer casing
is move opposite to tip.
Structural analyses of forceps and scissor behaviour
are conducted individually to determine the appropri-
ate geometrical parameter. In the forceps simulation,
Jaw Closing
L6
L5
L4 δ
θ

Figure 2. Compliant scissors-forceps design (Aguirre and
Frecker 2008).
initial model is developed using ANSYS design mod-
eller and length of the beams are assigned as para-
meters. 316L Stainless steel is biocompatible and
considered for this model during analysis. In the static
structural module, contact elements are created three
regions. Frictionless contact is assumed to improve the
computational efficiency; also, detection method
selected here is Node normal to Target. Boundary con-
ditions are applied as shown in Figure 3a. In which,
displacement is applied at sheath about 10 mm and also
forceps opposite end is fixed Figure 3b.
In order to perform geometrical parametrisation in
ANSYS Workbench, parametric model must be con-
structed according to Figure 1. Optimisation is conducted
with its structural performance of forceps and tweezers.
Hence, initial geometry is assumed to perform the opti-
misation technique. In this model, initial guess of the
geometry is considered according to the previous
research work (Aguirre and Frecker 2008), that is,
L1 = 3 mm, L2 = 4 mm, L3 = 8 mm, L4 = 9 mm,
L5 = 2 mm, L6 = 2 mm and L7 =.85 mm, and angle
θ = 6°, δ = 2°. Also, extruded thickness T1 = 1 mm and
T2 = 0.5 mm.
Figure 3a. Boundary and loading condition: sheath (a) moving
part and (b) fixed part.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 3
Figure 3b. Sheath (A) Moving Part (B) Fixed Part
Similarly, scissor function also performed using sta-
tic structural model. For performing scissor function,
boundary condition is considered as shown in Figure 3.
In which, sheath is supported using cylindrical support,
20 N mm torsional moment is applied at beam, and
more importantly to determine the scissor force, tip is
fixed to determine the force reaction at the point. Force
reaction is determined and it is equal to the scissor
force.
Another structural analysis is performed to deter-
mine additional jaw opening capability. In which,
the sheath is moved opposite to the jaw tip
by 2 mm.
In the optimisation, parameter correlations can be
calculated to detect the strong and weak correlation
between the sets of input and output parameters.
Here, input parameters are typically geometrical
parameter and output parameter are also geometri-
cal parameter in terms of expressions. Direct opti-
misation technique is selected to perform the
parametrisation of geometrical data. In which, 3
candidate point is considered and 20 design points
are considered to minimise the computational cost.
The optimisation problem is formulated here with
two different objectives that are minimisation of
equivalent stress and maximisation of output displa-
cement with allowable stress as constraints. Variable
of this problem is L3, L5, L6 and θ.
Figure 4. Displacement along jaws direction.
4 L. GEORGE B AND R. BHARANIDARAN
Figure 5. Equivalent stress during forceps action.
3. Results and discussion
Structural analysis is performed for the forceps bound-
ary and loading conditions. Mesh refinement study also
conducted to achieve the appropriate solution. Figure 4
shows the displacement of jaws along its normal open-
ing direction which is obtained as 1.049 mm. The length
of the beam L3 influences more on the deflection and it
acts as a cantilever.
Figure 5 shows the Von-mises stress distribution,
and stress appears to be maximum on beam L3 compare
to other region. This is clearly evident for the improved
design on supporting the stress uniformly. This unifor-
mity of stress occurs due to tapered design of beam which
eventually reduces the failure.
Alternatively, this design allows the surgeon to
open wider than the neutral position due to leverage
design at the back. And, static analysis yields the
additional displacement of 0.29 mm for 2 mm sheath
displacement in reverse direction. Displacement is
shown in Figure 6.
In addition to this scissor function is performed,
the force reaction value obtained for applied torsional
moment 20 N-mm is 0.654 N. The value is compara-
tively approximately four times higher than the pre-
vious findings. This value is reached because of the
better thickness. Also, sharp edge created at tip create
concentrated force.
Direct optimisation is performed for both the ana-
lysis and candidate points are obtained as shown in
Figure 7. Here, input parameters are L3 = P7, L5 = P8,
Figure 6. Additional opening of jaws.
Figure 7. Candidates point for forceps functions.
L6 = P5 and θ = P16, the value is varied from 8.099 to
9.9, 18.8 to 2.2, 1.8 to 2.2, 156.6° to 191.4°, respectively.
The results also show stress = P15 MPa and
displacement = P17 mm.
Figure 8 shows candidate points for the scissor
functions whereas P33 and P34 are the extruded thick-
ness T1 and T2, respectively. The value of P30 MPa
and P31 mm is the equivalent stress and displacement
of the jaws. In this maximum stress obtained when L1
and L2 are 1.1 mm and L4, L5, and L6 are 0.55 mm,
yield maximum stress is 200 MPa. This maximum
stress obtained at tip of the jaws which is proportional
to the cutting force on the tissues. Extruded thickness
is limited based on the diameter of the sheath.
4. Conclusion
This paper provides the novel design of MFS for MIS
application. The conceptual design is developed with
initial guess of geometrical parameter. The geometrical
parameter is optimised using direct optimisation. The
design obtained through optimisation is improvised as
a forceps functions and scissors functions. It has very
large opening of jaws 2.98 mm and high cutting force
Figure 8. Candidates point for scissor functions.

0.694 N. Also, provide an additional opening of jaws if
required.
Nomenclature
L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7 Length of beams
θ and δ Angle of beams
T1 and T2 Thickness of beams
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Science and Engineering
Research Board (SERB), India under Grant ECR/2016/001938.
Notes on contributors
Libu George B completed his graduated in mechanical engi-
neering (BE) and Masters in Mechanical Engineering
Technology (M.Tech) from Manipal Institute of
Technology (Manipal University). He is pursuing his PhD
in mechanical engineering from VIT University, India. He is
having 11+ years of industrial and research experience.
Presently, he is working as Senior mechanical engineer
in Baxter India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore. His research interests
are Finite Element Analysis, Mechanism Design, compliant
mechanism design, Medical equipment Design, verification,
Medical equipment Validation Biopsy devices and MEMS.
R. Bharanidaran, an associate professor of school mechan-
ical engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology Vellore,
graduated in mechanical engineering (B.E.) masters in com-
puter aided design (M.E.) from Anna University, India. In
2014, he obtained his PhD from National Institute of
Technology Tiruchirappalli, India for designing compliant
microgripper with multi functions. His research interests
are compliant mechanism design, Biopsy devices, prosthe-
tics, Flexure hinges, Finite Element Analysis and MEMS. He
has published numerous articles in refereed journals and
conference proceedings including Elsevier, Springer and in
various reputed publishers.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 5
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