A new computational method for piezoelectric plate modeling: application to membrane microsensors

Among applications of the piezoelectric effect in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), several employ membranes as the active region of the device. We have developed a new multilayered piezoelectric composite plate finite element that improves the modeling of piezoelectric membranes. In this paper we present the implementation of the element within the finite element package FEMEngine. We demonstrate the validity of the theory and use the implementation to simulate a viscosity sensor for food-stuff monitoring. Our work is motivated by the fact that the accurate modeling of piezoelectric multilayered membranes is not possible with currently available commercial finite element software.