Thermo-Mechanical Behavior of a Bilayer Microbeam Subjected to Nonlinear Electrostatic Pressure

Abstract

In the present work mechanical behavior of a bilayer cantilever microbeam subjected to nonlinear electrostatic pressure and temperature variations has been studied. Nonlinear integro-differential thermo-electro mechanical equation based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory has been derived and solved using Step-by-Step Linearization Method and finite difference method. The effect of temperature variations on static instability of the microbeam due to nonlinearity created by applied electrostatic forces has been investigated. In our model it has been shown that as the temperature increases, the applied voltage decreases, which in turn guides the system to an unstable condition, in other words, decreases the pull-in voltage. On the other hand, the pull-in voltage increases as the temperature decreases. Numerically obtained results for pull-in voltage and beam deflection are in good agreement with existing results in the literature.

Keywords

• MEMS
• Thermal
• Electrical
• Pull-in voltage
• Static instability
• Bilayer cantilever microbeam