Investigation on snapping transitions of locally nanostructured bistable disks actuated by distributed transverse forces

An analytical model is formulated for transitions of locally nanostructured bistable disks triggered by distributed transverse forces under a displacement control strategy. Different transition paths are found for the bistable disks actuated by transverse forces applied to different regions, even though the input energy before snapping is the same. The analytical results show that the snapping force varies and is considerably affected by the distribution of the applied force, which is corroborated by numerical modelling. The analytical model is used to obtain the design parameters of bistable disks for which transition can be induced by distributed forces less than one atmospheric pressure. These parameters include the disk flakiness, the plastic deformation accumulated from nanocrystallisation and the percentage of the nanostructured regions of the disks. Transition tests of the manufactured bistable disks based on pneumatic actuations validate the developed analytical model. This study provides an applicable approach to automatically trigger transitions of bistable disks between two stable configurations, including a snapping-through process and a snapping-back process.