Abstract: A bistable inertial switch with V-shaped buckling beams is designed by utilizing the snap-through characteristic of the V-shaped beam, which mainly consists of the parallel V-shaped beams, contact point, and the inertial mass. The dynamic model of the inertial switch is established considering the effects of the coupled forces such as filmdamping force, elastic force, inertial force, and contact force. The results of the simulation and experiments show that the switches have good threshold characteristics and autolocking functions, which also demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the theoretical design model. The experimental results also show that the threshold acceleration is 9.6g, which is only 4 percents different from the expected value. While the acceleration reaches the threshold value, the switch responses in less than 5 ms and will keep the close state until the cut-off threshold value is applied. Therefore, the V-shaped inertial switch shows attractive potential to be used in the systems of aircrafts and automotive safety systems.

Key words: inertial switch, bistability, V-shaped beam, nonlinearity, acceleration threshold, buckling