A Curved-Beam Bistable Mechanism

TLDR

The typical implementation of this mechanism is two curved centrally‑clamped parallel beams, hereafter referred to as “double curved beams”. The paper presents a monolithic mechanically‑bistable mechanism that does not rely on residual stress and discusses approaches to tailor its bistable behavior. Modal analysis and finite element simulations predict and design the bistable behavior of the monolithic curved beam, which is fabricated by deep‑reactive ion etching and experimentally verified to match analytic predictions, and the study also proposes methods to tailor this behavior. Microscale double curved beams fabricated by deep‑reactive ion etching exhibit test results that agree well with analytic predictions.

Abstract

This paper presents a monolithic mechanically-bistable mechanism that does not rely on residual stress for its bistability. The typical implementation of this mechanism is two curved centrally-clamped parallel beams, hereafter referred to as "double curved beams". Modal analysis and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation of the curved beam are used to predict, explain, and design its bistable behavior. Microscale double curved beams are fabricated by deep-reactive ion etching (DRIE) and their test results agree well with the analytic predictions. Approaches to tailor the bistable behavior of the curved beams are also presented.