A Curved-Beam Bistable Mechanism

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.