Snap-through mechanism of a thin beam confined in a curved constraint

In this work, a novel snap-through mechanism of a thin beam confined in a curved constraint and driven by local loading curvature is investigated. The movable boundaries of the buckled thin beam enable it to output snapthrough rotation at a lower energy input than the double-clamped beam structure. A theory is proposed to reveal the snap-through mechanism of the proposed structure based on the principle of minimum potential energy and saddle-node bifurcation, which uncovers the influences of loading positions, length ratio and constraint radius on the critical loading. Both theoretical and experimental results show that the large loading position and small constraint radius correspond to a large critical loading, while the length ratio hardly affects the critical loading. In addition, an experimental device is designed to output linear displacement based on the proposed snap-through mechanism. Due to lower energy input and snap-through response characteristics, the proposed bistable mechanism exhibits great prospects in energy harvesters, actuators, motors, pumps and robots.