Fully compliant bistable mechanisms (FCBMs) have numerous applications in both micro- and macroscale devices, but the nonlinearities associated with the deflections of the flexible members and the kinetostatic behaviors have made it difficult to design. Currently, the design of FCBMs relies heavily on nonlinear finite element modeling. In this paper, an analytical kinetostatic model is developed for FCBMs based on the beam constraint model (BCM) that captures the geometric nonlinearities of beam flexures that undergo relatively small deflections. An improved BCM (i.e., Timoshenko BCM (TBCM)) is derived based on the Timoshenko beam theory in order to include shear effects in the model. The results for three FCBM designs show that the kinetostatic model can successfully identify the bistable behaviors and make reasonable predictions for the locations of the unstable equilibrium points and the stable equilibrium positions. The inclusion of shear effects in the TBCM model significantly improves the prediction accuracy over the BCM model, as compared to the finite element analysis (FEA) results.
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February 2015
Research-Article
Kinetostatic Modeling of Fully Compliant Bistable Mechanisms Using Timoshenko Beam Constraint Model
Guimin Chen,
Guimin Chen
1
School of Electro-Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: guimin.chen@gmail.com
Xidian University
,Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071
, China
e-mail: guimin.chen@gmail.com
1Corresponding author.
Search for other works by this author on:
Fulei Ma
Fulei Ma
School of Electro-Mechanical Engineering,
Xidian University
,Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071
, China
Search for other works by this author on:
Guimin Chen
School of Electro-Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: guimin.chen@gmail.com
Xidian University
,Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071
, China
e-mail: guimin.chen@gmail.com
Fulei Ma
School of Electro-Mechanical Engineering,
Xidian University
,Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071
, China
1Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Mechanisms and Robotics Committee of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received November 6, 2013; final manuscript received October 20, 2014; published online November 26, 2014. Assoc. Editor: Kazuhiro Saitou.
J. Mech. Des. Feb 2015, 137(2): 022301 (10 pages)
Published Online: February 1, 2015
Article history
Received:
November 6, 2013
Revision Received:
October 20, 2014
Online:
November 26, 2014
Citation
Chen, G., and Ma, F. (February 1, 2015). "Kinetostatic Modeling of Fully Compliant Bistable Mechanisms Using Timoshenko Beam Constraint Model." ASME. J. Mech. Des. February 2015; 137(2): 022301. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4029024
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