<p>This work presents a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) featuring a pre-shaped curved beam with clamped boundaries to investigate its energy harvesting mechanism based on the intrinsic snap-through behavior. Since the ability of the beam to exhibit meta-stable and bi-stable states strongly depends on its geometric parameters, the potential energies of models with varying thicknesses and initial apex heights are analyzed, followed by the derivations of electromechanical coupled equations for both meta-stable and bi-stable systems. The effects of the geometric parameters of the curved beam on the nonlinear dynamic behaviors and energy harvesting efficiencies under different external excitations are examined. Series of experiments are tested to validate the theoretical analyses. The research findings show that the separation between the potential wells in the bi-stable beam is mainly governed by the thickness and initial apex height, while the potential barrier height is affected by both the geometric and material properties. The optimal energy harvesting efficiencies in the transition analyses of meta-stable and bi-stable states are achieved by tuning specific geometric parameters. Design guidelines are provided to maximize the bandwidth and efficiency for energy harvesting applications.</p>