PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION FOR CURVED BEAMS IN MULTISTABLE STRUCTURES

Bistable curved beam structures have been widely used in energy harvesting devices, switches and metamaterials. Traditional bistable curved beams possess constant thickness along their longitudinal directions. To achieve better performance, the optimization of beams with varying thickness is highly demanded. However, due to the complexity of the problem, less attention has been paid to this topic. In this paper, particle swarm optimization algorithm has been used to optimize the curve beams under fixed -fixed and pinned-pinned boundary conditions. The beam is optimized to improve the structure behavior such as maximum stiffness, maximum forward snapping force, maximum backward snapping force. This has been done using a combination of finite element simulation and particle swarm algorithm. Finally, 3D printed optimized beams based on results of optimization are tested and validated by an experimental study. The experimental data is in good agreement with numerical simulation and optimization results. The proposed approach has advantages in low computer energy consuming, high prediction accuracy, high robustness, and is easy to be modified in different scenarios. This method can be used in future design and optimization of multistable structure with multiple objectives, and thus meets the needs of rapidly changing engineering community.