Mechanical Vibrations of Thermally Actuated Silicon Membranes

Thermo-mechanical optimization of thermally actuated cantilever arrays

Scanning probe lithography (SPL) is an emerging method of producing sub 50-nm features for semiconductor applications. A new variation of this process known as Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) expands the range of SPL capabilities to include depositing organic and biological macromolecules with nanometer precision. Recent work has been underway to implement DPN as parallel process by employing clo...

Mechanical Behavior of an Electrostatically-Actuated Microbeam under Mechanical Shock

In this paper static and dynamic responses of a fixed-fixed microbeam to electrostatic force and mechanical shock for different cases have been studied. The governing equations whose solution holds the answer to all our questions about the mechanical behavior is the nonlinear elasto-electrostatic equations. Due to the nonlinearity and complexity of the derived equations analytical solution are ...

Mechanics of thermally fluctuating membranes

Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve

Gas-lifted oil wells are susceptible to failure through malfunction of gas lift valve assemblies (GLV). One failure mode occurs when the GLV check valve fails and product passes into the well annulus, potentially reaching the wellhead. This is a growing concern as offshore wells are drilled thousands of meters below the ocean floor in extreme temperature and pressure conditions, and repair and ...

Design and performance analysis of thermally actuated MEMS circuit breakers

The use of MEMS electrical switches as miniature electrically resettable circuit breakers is described. A prototype based on nickel thermal actuators on silicon has been fabricated and tested, and thermo-mechanical analysis is presented showing the relation between design parameters and performance. Temperature dependence of trip current is shown to be below 0.2% K−1, and analysis is presented ...