Enumeration of optimal pin-jointed bistable compliant mechanisms with non-crossing members

Abstract

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.

Design optimization for passive adaptive structural networks

“…In this case, it is highly recommended to use gradient-free methods (Sigmund, 2011). Because of this reason, multiple researches on structural network design with bi-stable components have been performed using the GA (Ohsaki et al, 2009; Prasad and Diaz, 2006).…”

“…However, the effectiveness of this approach needs to be studied in detail, especially for connectivity search. As attempted by Ohsaki et al (2009), a sequential design strategy for connectivity and parameter optimization can be considered and compared with this article’s approach. For effective connectivity search, a logical procedure to determine total possible connectivity, either by “ground structure” (Bendsoe et al, 1994; Dorn et al, 1964; Prasad and Diaz, 2006) or by enumeration scheme (Kawamoto et al, 2004; Ohsaki et al, 2009; Tuttle et al, 1989), can be considered in the future research.…”