| Flexible-link mechanisms offer several advantages over rigid-link mechanisms. Flexible-link mechanisms can have fewer joints than their rigid-body counter parts. Flexure joints and links have minimal friction losses, require no lubrication, are easily manufactured, and are not subject to abrasive wear.; The purpose of this work is to design a new kind of compliant mechanisms which make use of buckling and snap through buckling of straight and curved beam elements, and to synthesize and analyze these mechanisms quasi-statically in pre-buckling, post-buckling and snap-through operating regimes.; Buckling members are designed into compliant mechanisms to achieve dwell mechanisms that are easy to manufacture and that require a minimum number of components and minimal assembly.; Buckling analysis of flexible members is done using nonlinear inextensible exact theory for beams. Solution methods are examined and compared.; Compliant mechanisms consisting of buckling members are designed and simulated quasi-statically with the help of loop closure theory and polynomial load deflection curves.; Fabrication and testing of compliant approximate dwell mechanism consisting of a flexible initially straight beam as a coupler and a snap through buckling arc member as a follower is done. |
