DYNAMIC TRAPPING IN BI-STABLE ELECTROSTATICALLY ACTUATED CURVED MICRO BEAMS

摘要

Micro and nano devices incorporating bistable structural elements such as micro beams are designed to exploit the fact that the latter possess two stable configurations at the same actuation force. Generally, the transition of a micro beam from one table state to another, namely the snap-through which is essentially dynamic phenomenon, can be initiated by either static or dynamic activations. In this work, results of theoretical and numerical investigations of the transient dynamics of a pre-stressed initially curved double clamped micro beams actuated by a time dependent electrostatic load are presented. We show by means of a reduced order model of a shallow beam, derived using the Galerkin procedure, that the beam may exhibit various types of responses. For certain beam characteristics, the second stable state is inaccessible under a static loading but is attainable only by means of a specially tailored dynamic actuation. This gives way to the possibility of trapping the dynamically bistable beam at a stable configuration which is close to the electrode by applying special loading sequences.