Buckling-induced smart applications: recent advances and trends

Abstract

A paradigm shift has emerged over the last decade pointing to an exciting research area dealing with the harnessing of elastic structural instabilities for 'smart' purposes in a variety of venues. Among the different types of unstable responses, buckling is a phenomenon that has been known for centuries, and yet it is generally avoided through special design modifications. Increasing interest in the design of smart devices and mechanical systems has identified buckling and postbuckling response as a favorable behavior. The objective of this topical review is to showcase the recent advances in buckling-induced smart applications and to explain why buckling responses have certain advantages and are especially suitable for these particular applications. Interesting prototypes in terms of structural forms and material uses associated with these applications are summarized. Finally, this review identifies potential research avenues and emerging trends for using buckling and other elastic instabilities for future innovations.

Modelling of the buckling of a diaphragm–spine structure for a wave energy converter

“…The recent trends and advances in buckled beams for smart structures have been discussed and the authors define two main disciplines: energy related and motion related applications [12].…”

“…Using the concept map of buckling-induced applications [12], the SeaWave falls into the hybrid form category since it is represents a prototype of a structure designed for bistability.…”

“…Energy harvesting Research on the use of elastic instability has increased over the last decade and energy production forms a large part of this research [12] though this also tends to be at the microscale. A typical method to harvest energy is using piezo electric components, for which an applied mechanical strain will generate an electric charge in the component and vice versa.…”

Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of the Nonlinear Behavior of an Electrostatically Actuated In-Plane MEMS Arch

“…Plaut [18] studied the snap-through instability of arches and buckled beams and computed the critical bucking displacements for different beams under different boundary conditions. Hu et al [19] investigated exploiting the buckling phenomenon in arches and buckled beams in smart systems.…”

Projeto de mecanismos flexíveis baseado no efeito da flambagem não linear utilizando o método de otimização topológica.

“…São apresentados resultados bidimensionais de mecanismos considerando algumas configurações de geometria, condições de contorno e restrições de flambagem não-linear, como incremento de carga. sistemas nanoeletromecânicos (Nanoelectromechanical Systems (NEMS)) e igualmente aplicado a equipamentos de mecânica de precisão em geral (Ikeda, 1996; Anton e Sodano, 2007;Zhang et al, 2014;Hu et al, 2015;Uchino, 2010;Kögl e Bucalem, 2005;Silva, 2003 (Vanderplaats, 1984;Haftka e Gürdal, 2012), o MOT permite determinar ondeé possível gerar novos furos na topologia da estrutura, mantendo a máxima eficiência na relação massa/rigidez, por exemplo, aumentando desta forma o desempenho da estrutura (Bendsøe e Kikuchi, 1988) e permitindo grande liberdade para desenvolver novos conceitos (ver figura 1.4). Este métodoé largamente utilizado nas indústrias automobilística e aeronáutica, nos Estados Unidos, Japão e Europa para o projeto de componentes mecânicos, além de recentemente ter se expandido para outrasáreas da Engenharia no meio acadêmico, como o projeto de mecanismos flexíveis, micro-mecanismos flexíveis com atuação térmica (Jonsmann, 2000), atuadores flextensionais, MEMS, NEMS, antenas e motores eletromagnéticos, etc (Kögl e Silva, 2005;Silva et al, 2000;Bendsoe e Sigmund, 2013 maioria dos casos no MEF e num algoritmo de otimização numérico para encontrar á otima distribuição de material no interior de um domínio inicial discretizado em elementos finitos, que permanecerá fixo durante o processo iterativo (Bendsøe, 1989 Larsen et al (1997);Sigmund (1997); Kikuchi e Kota (1997); Nishiwaki et al (1998) propuseram o uso do MOT como o modelo de material SIMP para a concepção deste dispositivo mecânico, emergindo basicamente duas formulações.…”