Dynamical behaviour of electrically actuated microcantilevers

Hamed Farokhi , Mergen H. Ghayesh

Abstract

The current paper aims at investigating the nonlinear dynamical behaviour of an electrically actuated microcantilever. The microcantilever is excited by a combination of AC and DC voltages. The nonlinear equation of motion of the microcantilever is obtained by means of force and moment balances. A high-dimensional Galerkin scheme is then applied to reduce the equation of motion to a discrete model. A numerical technique, based on the pseudo-arclength continuation method, is used to solve the discretized model. The electrostatic deflection of the microcantilever and static pull-in instabilities, due to the DC voltage, are analyzed by plotting the so-called DC voltage-deflection curves. At the simultaneous presence of the DC and AC voltages, the nonlinear dynamical behaviour of the microcantilever is analyzed by plotting frequency-response and force-response curves.

Key Words

microcantilevers; electrically actuated; pull-in instability; dynamical behaviour

Address

Hamed Farokhi — Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 0C3
Mergen H. Ghayesh — School of Mechanical, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

PDF Viewer

Preview uses the same access rules as Full Text PDF (subscription, purchase, or open access).

← Back to Volume 4, No. 3