Comportement élastique des articulations flexibles à col elliptique

We present here amodel for the prediction of the elastic behaviour of elliptic notch hinges, including bending and shear in both planes, stretching and torsion. In a first step, an exact solution is established in the frame of the beam theory, making use of Sommerfeld's change of variable, which is well known in the lubrication theory. The second step is the deduction of the asymptotic solution for very thin hinges. Finally, and yhis is the most original part of our presentation, a simple corrective factor is deduced numerically, which enables to pass from the asymptotic solution to the exact one with a fair approximation in the practical range of thicknesses. <the simplicity of the obtained model has no equivalent in the literature, which is specially useful at the design stage.