Numerical simulation and analysis of an electroactuated MEMS capacitive switch using finite element method

The MEMS capacitive switch based on fixed-fixed microbeam have garnered significant attention due to their geometric simplicity and broad applicability, and the accurate models should be developed to predict their electromechanical behaviors. The improved macromodel of the fixed-fixed microbeam of MEMS capacitive switch is presented in this paper, the numerical analysis of mechanical characterizations of the MEMS capacitive switches under electric actuation are performed by the finite element discretization method, and the performances of static and dynamic of MEMS capacitive switch are obtained. The numerical results show that, with only a few nodes used in the computation, the finite element discretization method gives the identical results to other numerical methods, such as the shooting method and experiments. Moreover, the proposed model can offer proper and convenient approach for numerical calculations, and promote design of MEMS devices.