Engineering Commons^™

A Self-Retracting Fully Compliant Bistable Micromechanism, Nathan D. Masters, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

A new class of fully compliant bistable mechanisms with the added benefit of integrated self-retraction has been developed (hereafter identified as Self-Retracting Fully compliant Bistable Mechanism or SRFBM). A technique using tensural pivots to manage compressive loading in compliant mechanisms is introduced and implemented in the SRFBM. The elimination of traditional kinematic joints and their associated clearance allows a total displacement between stable positions of 8.5 m, and the mechanism size is less than 300 m square when using 2.0 m minimum line widths. Maximum actuation force is approximately 500 N. The SRFBM's small linear displacement and reasonable actuation force …