TY - JOUR
T1 - An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of Electrostatically Coupled Cantilever Microbeams
AU - Ilyas, Saad
AU - Nanaiah, Karumbaiah Chappanda
AU - Hafiz, Md Abdullah Al
AU - Ramini, Abdallah
AU - Younis, Mohammad I.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This work has been supported through King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) research funds.
PY - 2016/6/27
Y1 - 2016/6/27
N2 - We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of the static and dynamic behavior of electrostatically coupled laterally actuated silicon microbeams. The coupled beam resonators are composed of two almost identical flexible cantilever beams forming the two sides of a capacitor. The experimental and theoretical analysis of the coupled system is carried out and compared against the results of beams actuated with fixed electrodes individually. The pull-in characteristics of the electrostatically coupled beams are studied, including the pull-in time. The dynamics of the coupled dual beams are explored via frequency sweeps around the neighborhood of the natural frequencies of the system for different input voltages. Good agreement is reported among the simulation results and the experimental data. The results show considerable drop in the pull-in values as compared to single microbeam resonators. The dynamics of the coupled beam resonators are demonstrated as a way to increase the bandwidth of the resonator near primary resonance as well as a way to introduce increased frequency shift, which can be promising for resonant sensing applications. Moreover the dynamic pull-in characteristics are also studied and proposed as a way to sense the shift in resonance frequency.
AB - We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of the static and dynamic behavior of electrostatically coupled laterally actuated silicon microbeams. The coupled beam resonators are composed of two almost identical flexible cantilever beams forming the two sides of a capacitor. The experimental and theoretical analysis of the coupled system is carried out and compared against the results of beams actuated with fixed electrodes individually. The pull-in characteristics of the electrostatically coupled beams are studied, including the pull-in time. The dynamics of the coupled dual beams are explored via frequency sweeps around the neighborhood of the natural frequencies of the system for different input voltages. Good agreement is reported among the simulation results and the experimental data. The results show considerable drop in the pull-in values as compared to single microbeam resonators. The dynamics of the coupled beam resonators are demonstrated as a way to increase the bandwidth of the resonator near primary resonance as well as a way to introduce increased frequency shift, which can be promising for resonant sensing applications. Moreover the dynamic pull-in characteristics are also studied and proposed as a way to sense the shift in resonance frequency.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/614801
UR - http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0924424716303077
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84976416029&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.sna.2016.06.021
DO - 10.1016/j.sna.2016.06.021
M3 - Article
SN - 0924-4247
VL - 247
SP - 368
EP - 378
JO - Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
JF - Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
ER -