USING ALE-FEM TO SIMULATE THE INSTABILITY OF BEAM-TYPE NANO-ACTUATOR IN THE PRESENCE OF ELECTROSTATIC FIELD AND DISPERSION FORCES

The ability of mesh design in arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element method (ALE-FEM) makes it a generally efficient device for simulating engineering problems. In this paper, ALE-FEM is used to model the static deflection and instability of beam-type cantilever nano-actuators using plain element. Effects of electrostatic fields are taken into account through first-order fringing field corrected model. In addition, the influence of quantum vacuum fluctuations is considered via attractive Casimir and van der Waals force depending on the range of application. The instability parameters, i.e. pull-in voltage and deflection of the nano-actuator are computed. The obtained results are compared with those reported in literature using numerical method as well as Lagrangian FEM. The findings indicate that ALE method can be used as a powerful technique for modeling beam type nano-actuator.