Study of Static Deflection and Instability Voltage of Phase Shifter Micro-Switches Using a Nonlinear Beam Model and Non-localized elasticity theory

With development of micro-electromechanical phase shifter, the study of deformation and instability of micro-switches is very important. The static behavior and pull-in instability of the clamped-clamped micro-beam subjected to local electrostatic loads which is used in DMTL phase shifter is investigated. Taking into account of nonlinear effects caused by radius of curvature for the first time, the nonlinear differential equation of the system is obtained using Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and effects of small sizes by employing the principle of virtual work. By considering the local electrostatic static voltage applied on the micro-beam, the governing partial differential equation is further discretized with the aid of Galerkin’s method, and the effect of system parameters on static deflection and pull-in voltage of the micro-switches are investigated. It is found that curvature nonlinearity has a great effect on the mechanical behavior of the micro-switches. Increasing this parameter leads to hardening behavior in the micro-switches, and also static deflection is decreased with respect to linear beam theory. The results also indicate that with an increase in the applied voltage, nonlinear strains increase and nonlinear effects caused by radius of curvature will be significant. For instance, when the stiffness parameter is increased from 0 to 10, maximum deflections of the micro-switches for applied voltages of 1V, 2V and 3V decreases about 7.7%, 35.8% and 48.6 %, respectively.