In the present work the pull-in voltage of a micro cracked cantilever beam subjected to nonlinear electrostatic pressure was studied. Two mathematical models were employed for modeling the problem: a lumped mass model and a classical beam model. The effect of crack in the lumped mass model is the reduction of the effective stiffness of the beam and in the beam model; the crack is modeled as a m...

A method for identifying a piecewise-linear approximation to the nonlinear forces acting on a system is presented and demonstrated using response data from a micro cantilever beam. It is based on the Restoring Force Surface (RFS) method by Masri and Caughey, which is very attractive when initially testing a nonlinear system because it does not require the user to postulate a form for the nonlin...

Gyroscopes are used as rotation rate sensors. Conventional gyroscopes are heavy and bulky, which creates important problems regarding their usage in different applications. Micro-gyroscopes have solved these problems due to their small size. The beam micro-gyroscope is one of the popular types of inertial sensors. Their small dimensions and low energy consumption are key reasons for their popul...

Microcantilever-based sensors can be used to detect molecular absorption of, for example, hydrogen gas, which causes changes in the surface stress, leading to deflection of the cantilever. Such a deflection can be determined by means of optical beam deflection, capacitance-, or piezo-resistance based readout. We have recently proposed a compact integrated mechano-optical sensor using a novel an...

A new micro-XRF instrument was developed in combination with an atomic force microscope (AFM). A small pinhole of 5 or 10 μm was made on the AFM cantilever. The center of the micro X-ray beam generated by a polycapillary X-ray lens was passed through the pinhole. The present experiment demonstrated that the size of the original X-ray beam of 48 μm produced by the polycapillary lens was reduced ...

In this paper, we provide a unified and self-consistent treatment of a functionally graded material (FGM) microbeam with varying thermal conductivity subjected to non-uniform or uniform temperature field. Specifically, it is our objective to determine the effect of the microscopic size of the beam, the electrostatic gap, the temperature field and material property on the pull-in voltage of the ...

In this article, in reference to the modified couple stress theory and Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, the free lateral vibration response of a micro-beam carrying a moveable attached mass is investigated. This is a decent model for biological and biomedical applications beneficial to the early-stage diagnosis of diseases and malfunctions of human body organs and enzymes. The micro-cantilever beam...

A piezoelectric bimorph beam, as an upgraded cantilever beam structure, can be used to detect gas content and build a micro-actuator, among other functions. Thus, this beam is widely applied to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), transformers, and precision machinery. For example, when photoacoustic spectroscopy is performed to detect oil-soluble gas in transformers, a micro-cantilever beam ...