Dynamically triggered snap-through
Abstract
Snap-through is a sudden and large mechanical deformation that is usually triggered by driving a control parameter beyond a bifurcation threshold. Here, we study a buckled strip that undergoes a saddle-node bifurcation as one of its clamps is rotated. We show experimentally, theoretically, and numerically that the effective snapping threshold can be markedly lowered by speeding up the rotation. For actuation times that are short but nevertheless longer than the fundamental flexural period, the strip is observed to remain close to the instantaneous quasi-static equilibrium for most of the loading process. This allows us to derive an energetic criterion that accurately estimates a dynamic instability threshold well below the saddle-node bifurcation point. On the other hand, very near the bifurcation point, the evolution of the quasi-static equilibrium undergoes a geometric boost, which entrains the general motion of the beam. As a result, a slower actuation of the clamp than predicted by the energy argument suffices to produce snap-through. A distinct scaling is derived in that limit, based on the aforementioned boost and critical slowing down of the least stable vibration mode of the beam. More broadly, our results show how finite-rate forcing can trigger snap-through before the quasi-static instability threshold is reached
Related
- Elastic Snap-Through Instabilities Are Governed by Geometric Symmetries
- Tunable Pathway Selection in Coupled Multistable Snap-Through Systems
- Reducing the Cost of Qudit State Preparation by Learning a Sparse Structure for SNAP Gates
- Helicity effects in the dynamically assisted Schwinger mechanism
- Classical records and Bell correlations in a dynamically formed quantum body
BibTeX
@misc{kozyreff2026dynamically,
title = {{Dynamically triggered snap-through}},
author = {Gregory Kozyreff and Lucie Domino and Basile Radisson and Hadrien Bense},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.15914},
eprint = {2609.15914},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05760365v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Dynamically triggered snap-through
AU - Gregory Kozyreff
AU - Lucie Domino
AU - Basile Radisson
AU - Hadrien Bense
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - HAL
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.15914
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05760365v1
AB - Snap-through is a sudden and large mechanical deformation that is usually triggered by driving a control parameter beyond a bifurcation threshold. Here, we study a buckled strip that undergoes a saddle-node bifurcation as one of its clamps is rotated. We show experimentally, theoretically, and numerically that the effective snapping threshold can be markedly lowered by speeding up the rotation. For actuation times that are short but nevertheless longer than the fundamental flexural period, the strip is observed to remain close to the instantaneous quasi-static equilibrium for most of the loading process. This allows us to derive an energetic criterion that accurately estimates a dynamic instability threshold well below the saddle-node bifurcation point. On the other hand, very near the bifurcation point, the evolution of the quasi-static equilibrium undergoes a geometric boost, which entrains the general motion of the beam. As a result, a slower actuation of the clamp than predicted by the energy argument suffices to produce snap-through. A distinct scaling is derived in that limit, based on the aforementioned boost and critical slowing down of the least stable vibration mode of the beam. More broadly, our results show how finite-rate forcing can trigger snap-through before the quasi-static instability threshold is reached
ER -