Related papers: Accelerated snapping of slender beams under latera…
When a pair of parallel buckling beams of unequal width make lateral contact under increasing compression, eventually either the thin or the thick beam will snap, leading to collective motion of the beam pair. Using experiments and FEM…
Elastic instabilities such as buckling and snapping have evolved into a powerful design principle, enabling memory, sequential shape morphing, and computing in metamaterials and devices. Modifying the post-buckling configurations or their…
We investigate the mechanics of bistable, hard-magnetic, elastic beams, combining experiments, finite element modeling (FEM), and a reduced-order theory. The beam is made of a hard magneto-rheological elastomer, comprising two segments with…
When a flat elastic strip is compressed along its axis, it is bent in one of two possible directions via spontaneous symmetry breaking and forms a cylindrical arc, a phenomenon well known as Euler buckling. When this cylindrical section is…
We introduce a high-throughput platform that enables simultaneous, parallel testing of six bistable beams via programmable motion of a rotating disk. By prescribing harmonic angular dynamics, the platform explores the phase space of angular…
Many elastic structures have two possible equilibrium states: from umbrellas that become inverted in a sudden gust of wind, to nano-electromechanical switches, origami patterns and the hopper popper, which jumps after being turned…
Double-clamped bistable buckled beams, as the most elegant bistable mechanisms, demonstrate great versatility in various fields, such as robotics, energy harvesting, and MEMS. However, their design is always hindered by time-consuming and…
Dynamic buckling is addressed for complete elastic spherical shells subject to a rapidly applied step in external pressure. Insights from the perspective of nonlinear dynamics reveal essential mathematical features of the buckling…
Bistability and snap-through instabilities are central to various mechanisms in nature and engineering, enabling rapid movement and large shape changes with minimal energy input. These phenomena are easily demonstrated by bending a piece of…
Under increasing compression, an unbuckled shell is in a metastable state which becomes increasingly precarious as the buckling load is approached. So to induce premature buckling a lateral disturbance will have to overcome a decreasing…
We uncover how nonlinearities dramatically alter the buckling of elastic beams. First, we show experimentally that sufficiently wide ordinary elastic beams and specifically designed metabeams ---beams made from a mechanical metamaterial---…
Snapping beams enable rapid geometric transitions through nonlinear instability, offering an efficient means of generating motion in soft robotic systems. In this study, a tendon-driven mechanism consisting of spiral-based metabeams was…
Bistable shells can reversibly change between two stable configurations with very little energetic input. Understanding what governs the shape and snap-through criteria of these structures is crucial for designing devices that utilize…
We consider the dynamic snapping instability of elastic beams and shells. Using the Kirchhoff rod and F\"{o}ppl-von K\'{a}rm\'{a}n plate equations, we study the stability, deformation modes, and snap-through dynamics of an elastic arch with…
We present a monolithic mechanical metamaterial comprising a periodic arrangement of snapping units with tunable tensile behavior. Under tension, the metamaterial undergoes a large extension caused by sequential snap-through instabilities,…
Snapping instabilities in soft structures offer a powerful pathway to achieve rapid and energy-efficient actuation. In this study, an eccentric dome-shaped snapping actuator is developed to generate controllable asymmetric motion through…
A growing or compressed thin elastic sheet adhered to a rigid substrate can exhibit a buckling instability, forming an inward hump. Our study shows that the strip morphology depends on the delicate balance between the compression energy and…
Active filaments are a workhorse for propulsion and actuation across biology, soft robotics and mechanical metamaterials. However, artificial active rods suffer from limited robustness and adaptivity because they rely on external control,…
Snapping of a slender structure is utilized in a wide range of natural and man-made systems, mostly to achieve rapid movement without relying on muscle-like elements. Although several mechanisms for elastic energy storage and rapid release…
The recently described pushframe imager, a parallelized single pixel camera capturing with a pushbroom-like motion, is intrinsically suited to both remote-sensing and compressive sampling. It optically applies a 2D mask to the imaged scene,…