A Further Theoretical Study of Capacitive Pressure Sensors Based on Thin Film Elastic Deflection and Parallel Plate Capacitor: Refined Closed-Form Solution and Numerical Calibration

Abstract

The capacitive pressure sensor based on thin film elastic deflection and a parallel plate capacitor uses a non-conductive elastic annular thin film centrally connected to a conductive, rigid, flat, concentric-circular thin plate as a pressure sensing unit. On application of pressure, the non-conductive thin film deflects elastically, which in turn moves the conductive thin plate (as a movable upper electrode plate of the parallel plate capacitor) towards the lower electrode plate, resulting in a change in the capacitance of the capacitor. Therefore, the applied pressure can be determined by measuring the capacitance change, based on the closed-form solution for the elastic behavior of the annular thin film under pressure. Such capacitive pressure sensors are more suitable for large-sized sensors such as those used for building-facade wind pressure measurements, etc. In this paper, a further theoretical study of such capacitive pressure sensors is presented. The newly presented, more refined closed-form solution can greatly reduce the output pressure error under the same input capacitance, in comparison with the previously presented closed-form solution. A numerical example of how to use the resulting closed-form solution to numerically calibrate input–output characteristics is given for the first time. The variation trend of pressure operation ranges and input–output characteristics with important parametric variations, which can be used for guiding the design of such capacitive pressure sensors, is investigated.

Keywords

• capacitive pressure sensor
• parallel plate capacitor
• elastic deflection
• annular membrane
• closed-form solution