Some design considerations on the electrostatically actuated microstructures

An analytical approach to the static, dynamic, and stability analysis of the microstructures subjected to electrostatic forces is presented in this paper. The present model has the advantages of full analytical description, explicit physical meanings, and agrees well with the reality under small deflection. The stiffness of a microstructure will be softened periodically with the frequency of applied voltage and the variation increases with increasing the magnitude of applied voltage. The dynamic instabilities may occur below the pull-in voltage. The instable regions appear not only near the multiples of resonant frequencies but also near some fractions of resonant frequency differences. Furthermore, the instable regions expand with increasing the applied voltage. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.