Quasi-static Model of Microelectromechanical Cantilever

A. M.-K. Lai1, A.A.Rahman2 and W.S.-H. Wong3

1
School of Engineering
Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus)
93576 Kuching Sarawak, Malaysia.
2
Faculty of Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
3
School of Engineering
Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus)
93576 Kuching Sarawak, Malaysia
alai@swinburne.edu.my, pyaarahman@rimc.unimas.my, wwong@swinburne.edu.my.

Abstract

The
modeling
of
the
microelectromechanical cantilever is governed by the
Naviers equation for elasticity and the Maxwells
equation for electrostatic. The computational analysis
comprised of the electrostatic analysis and the
mechanical analysis [1]. The electric field is derived
from the potential difference between the cantilever
and the ground (reference plate). The surface force due
to the potential difference is then fed to the mechanical
analysis module to compute the deformation of the
micromechanical structure. The analysis is done
iteratively until an equilibrium state is reached. The
deformation of the micromechanical structure as gives
rise to the redistribution of the electric charges on the
surface of the structure, hence a change in the electric
field. Deformation of the microelectromechanical
structure as well as the redistribution of the electric
charges requires a re-meshing of the domains after
each iterative step. The proposed model adopts an
uncoupled quasi-static approach together with a
moving mesh algorithm. The model is used to
simulate the reaction of the cantilever due to the
change in the electric field.
Keywords: microelectromechanical, quasi-static model,
cantilever, electrostatic

flexibility to have electronic circuits built on chip and

a good DC response; with a trade off in linearity [2].
As such, the elastic-electrostatic system can be found
in a wide variety of MEMS devices, such as
resonators, accelerometers, micro-grippers, micropumps, pressure sensors and RF switches.
The wide application of elastic-electrostatic
systems in MEMS, gives raise to the need to
continuously evaluate and optimize the performance
and preventing destructive phenomena. This leads to
the demand for efficient methods for the analysis of
these devices.
The proposed model is a quasi-static uncoupled
model with a moving mesh algorithm to give a
simple model for elastic-electrostatic analysis.
Section 2 is dedicated to the description of the
mathematical model used for the finite element
analysis (FEA) formulation. The methods of FEA
implementation is discussed in section 3. Section 4
presents a case study to evaluate the model.
Concluding remarks are made in Section 5.

2. Mathematical Model
A schematic setup for the elastic-electrostatic
cantilever system is as shown in Figure 1.

1. Introduction
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are
micrometer size electromechanical devices that are
fabricated through processes that are based on upon
the integrated-circuit technology. The operation of
MEMS transducers and actuators relies on the
electrical and mechanical properties of the
semiconductor materials of which the system is built
on.
The main actuating and sensing properties used in
MEMS
is
electrostatic,
piezoelectricity,
piezoresistivity, thermal, electromagnetism and optics.
Electrostatic actuation and sensing is one of the most
widely applied, due to structural simplicity, the

1-4244-1435-0/07/$25.002007 IEEE

B
E
G

Figure 1: A schematic of an elastic-electrostatic

cantilever system

The potential at the boundary of the cantilever and

the ground plate is fixed as

B
G

=V
=0

E =

(2)

The medium between the cantilever and the

ground plate is linear and isotropic; and no free charge
exists in the region, E , therefore, electric field in the
region is governed by the Laplace equation

( ) = 0

(3)

The surface force on the cantilever due to the

potential difference is obtained by taking the surface
integral of the Maxwells stress tensor (MST)

1
2

u =0
F

u i
= fE
n

(1)

The electric field between the cantilever and the

ground plate is related to the potential by

prescribed with the Neumann's condition[4]; as

follows

ij = Ei E j ij (E k E k )

(4)

The electrostatic force is given by

f E = n dS

As the cantilever deforms due to the electric force,

the shape of the electrostatic domain also changes due
to the redistribution of charges on the deformed
surface.
In the quasi-static model, it was assumed that the
charges on the surface were constant as the mechanical
reaction (i.e. the deformation of the cantilever) lags the
redistribution of charges in the time space.

3. Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

The FEA consists of three parts, namely: the
calculating the electric field from the applied electric
potential, calculating the electrostatic force from the
electric field vector, and then applying the electrostatic
force on to the Naviers equation and solve for the
displacement vector of the cantilever. The equations
are solved iteratively.
The variational form of governing equations is as
follows:

(5)

2 u + ( + )( u ) + f = 0

(7)

The body force, f in equation (7) is the

electrostatic force computed from equation (5) [3].
The electrostatic-mechanical analysis of the
cantilever is characterized by the elliptical mixed
boundary condition.
The boundary condition at the fixed end of the
cantilever, is prescribed with the Dirichlet condition,
while the remaining length of the cantilever is

K e = 0

= B e e

(10)

= q Te

(11)

f
e

(6)

where u is the displacement vector, and is the

first and second Lame constant.
The cantilever system is made of isotropic and
isothermal material. Under equilibrium condition,
equation (6) is reduced to

(9)

The deformation of the beam is governed by the

Naviers equation for linear elasticity

2u
2 = 2 u + ( + )( u ) + f
t

(8)

e
E

k e q T f Ee = 0

(12)

The nodal potential, is obtained from equation

(9); and the nodal electric field vector, is then
calculated using equation (10). The electrostatic force
is then calculated from equation (11), from nodal
electric field vector on B ; as noted by q . Lastly, the
electrostatic force is incorporated into equation (12)
and the nodal displacement q is solved.
In the conventional FEA, the geometry of the
domain is updated with the displacement vectors, and
the domains are re-mesh after each iterative step.
In the proposed model, instead of re-meshing, the
nodal displacement vector is used to update the nodal
position of the mesh; hence creating a moving-mesh.

{q } = {q }+ {u}
n +1

(13)

The flowchart in Figure 2 shows the algorithm of

the solver.
Meshing of both the mechanical and electrostatic
domains were carried out using GMSH[9]. The solver
was implemented by codes written in FORTRAN90.
The FEA was modeled on a machine with Intel
Pentium M715 processor at 1.5GHz, with 512MB
RAM running on Windows XP.

similar to the displacement versus potential difference

curve by Batra and et. al. [8].
The deformation curve obtained from the FEA is
as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 3: Side view: Geometry and meshing of the

cantilever in GMSH.

Figure 4: FEM simulation result for the cantilever

Figure 2: Algorithm for FEA

4. Case Study
Figure 3 shows the geometry and meshing of the
cantilever in GMSH. The cantilever is 100m in
length, with a thickness ranging from 3m to 7m and
width of 10m. The cantilever is made of epoxy with
Youngs Modulus of 1.44GPa and Poissons ratio of
0.38 [5].
FEA studies the response of the cantilever to
different potential difference. Initial gap is 4m and
was subjected to potential difference with
incrementing step size of 5V.
The simulation result from the FEA, as shown in
Figure 4 .
The displacement versus potential difference
curve is as shown in Figure 5. The curve bears a profile

Figure 5: Displacement versus voltage graph.

Figure 6: Deformation curve obtained by the quasi-static

model.

5. Summary
A quasi-static model was used to study the
response of a cantilever to various applied potential
difference and the displacement versus applied
potential difference curve, as well as the deformation
curve was found to be similar to the curve obtained by
various published models [6][7][8]. Moreover, the
time taken for the FEA is in the excess of hundreds
seconds as opposed to the hours required by traditional
FEA. Further test is currently in progress to estimate
the time saving factor.
This model may be used for designers of
electrostatic-elastic based MEMS devices to study the
response of different structural and property
combinations of cantilever to applied potential
difference. The model may be adapted to different
mechanical structure such as fixed-fixed beam and
circular membrane. The proposed method is sufficient
to provide a first estimate for the response to a design;
however it should not be viewed as a replacement of
the existing traditional methods for MEMS design and
prototyping.

References
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for Electrostatic Analysis of Deformable
Conductors, Journal of Microelectromechanical
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MEMS and NEMS, Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2003.

[4] S. S. Rao, The Finite Element Method in

Engineering, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann,
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