Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Enumeration Of Optimal Pin-Jointed Bistable Compliant Mechanisms With Non-Crossing Members, M. Ohsaki, N. Katoh, T. Kinoshita, S. Tanigawa, D. Avis, I. Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

An optimization approach is presented for enumerating pin-jointed bistable compliant mechanisms. In the first stage, the statically determinate trusses with non-crossing members containing a given set of nodes and some pre-defined members are regarded as minimally rigid framework or a Laman framework, and are enumerated without repetitions by the graph enumeration algorithm. In the second stage, the nodal locations and the cross-sectional areas are optimized under mechanical constraints, where the snapthrough behavior is extensively utilized to produce a pin-jointed bistable compliant mechanism. In the numerical examples, many bistable compliant mechanisms are generated to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. …