{"title":"Overcoming limitations of electrostatic bow snap-through in bistable microbeams via prestress tuning","authors":"Lior Medina","doi":"10.1016/j.euromechsol.2025.105802","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A curved bistable microbeam subjected to electrostatic loading from an electrode facing its concave side may exhibit a bow snap-through (<span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span>) response, depending on the applied voltage, initial conditions, and beam geometry. However, for stress-free microbeams, achieving <span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span> has been shown to be quite challenging, since the conditions required for a successful actuation are limited. In the present work, <span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span> is studied in the presence of prestress, enabling the development of expanded necessary conditions and upper bounds for <span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span>. The conditions are derived using an undamped, single-degree-of-freedom (DoF) reduced-order (RO) model, obtained via Galerkin’s decomposition. Subsequent analysis of the acquired conditions reveals that the introduction of prestress can be leveraged to tune the behaviour of a microbeam and overcome the constraints inherent to the stress-free beam. More specifically, it is shown that compressive prestress can increase the design-initial conditions space where <span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span> can be achieved, facilitating a controlled equilibrium shift in bistable structures via bow actuation. These new insights and conditions provide practical guidelines for both researchers and engineers in designing and tuning microbeams using prestress, thus overcoming the limitations of a stress-free beam and obtain a successful <span><math><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>T</mi></mrow></math></span>, supporting the development of efficient, nonvolatile, and low-power bistable devices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50483,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Mechanics A-Solids","volume":"115 ","pages":"Article 105802"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Mechanics A-Solids","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0997753825002360","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MECHANICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A curved bistable microbeam subjected to electrostatic loading from an electrode facing its concave side may exhibit a bow snap-through () response, depending on the applied voltage, initial conditions, and beam geometry. However, for stress-free microbeams, achieving has been shown to be quite challenging, since the conditions required for a successful actuation are limited. In the present work, is studied in the presence of prestress, enabling the development of expanded necessary conditions and upper bounds for . The conditions are derived using an undamped, single-degree-of-freedom (DoF) reduced-order (RO) model, obtained via Galerkin’s decomposition. Subsequent analysis of the acquired conditions reveals that the introduction of prestress can be leveraged to tune the behaviour of a microbeam and overcome the constraints inherent to the stress-free beam. More specifically, it is shown that compressive prestress can increase the design-initial conditions space where can be achieved, facilitating a controlled equilibrium shift in bistable structures via bow actuation. These new insights and conditions provide practical guidelines for both researchers and engineers in designing and tuning microbeams using prestress, thus overcoming the limitations of a stress-free beam and obtain a successful , supporting the development of efficient, nonvolatile, and low-power bistable devices.
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Mechanics endash; A/Solids continues to publish articles in English in all areas of Solid Mechanics from the physical and mathematical basis to materials engineering, technological applications and methods of modern computational mechanics, both pure and applied research.