Dynamic behavior analysis of cantilever-type nano-mechanical electrostatic actuator

• Versatile means of hybrid method analyzes the nonlinear electrostatic devices.
• Using DC voltage for cantilever-type nano-mechanical electrostatic actuator.
• Nonlinear electrostatic coupling force and surface effects also are joined.

An investigation is performed into the nonlinear pull-in behavior of a cantilever-type nano-mechanical electrostatic actuator. In performing the analysis, the actuator is modeled as an Euler–Bernoulli beam and the influence of surface effects, the fringing field effect and the Casimir force effect are taken into explicit account. In general, analyzing the dynamic behavior of nanoscale electrostatic devices is challenging due to the nonlinear coupling of the electrostatic force and Casimir force. In the present study, this problem is resolved by using a hybrid computational scheme comprising the differential transformation method and the finite difference approximation technique. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated by the two cantilever-type micro-beams when actuated by a DC voltage. The numerical results show that the present results for the pull-in voltage deviate by no more than 1.47% from those presented in the literature using a different scheme. In addition, it is shown that surface effects play a significant role in determining the static deflection and pull-in voltage of the cantilever beam nano-beam. In general, the results confirm that the hybrid differential transformation/finite difference approximation method provides an accurate and computationally efficient means of simulating the nonlinear electrostatic behavior of nanostructure systems.