Coupled mechanical and electrostatic microactuator analysis

Dynamic analysis of electromechanical microactuators requires a time domain solution of potentially complex coupled mechanical and electromagnetic problems. Finite element analysis (FEA) is a proven technique for the numerical solution of arbitrary problems, however the creation and evaluation of FEA descriptions can be expensive in computational resource and time requirements, particularly in three dimensional physical models. The solution of coupled problems increases the problem dimension and can place huge demands on computational resources. The dynamic analysis of a novel twin stator wobble motor is considered here with the aim of examining the accuracy of numerical electrostatic models and to demonstrate a procedure for the solution of coupled field problems in the time domain using existing FEA software