Nonlinear mechanics of MEMS plates with a total Lagrangian approach

The subject of this paper is a fully Lagrangian approach for coupled (mechanical deformations caused by applied electric fields) analysis of Micro-Electro-Mechanical (MEM) plates. The analysis is carried out by employing the two-dimensional (2-D) Finite Element Method (FEM) to analyze mechanical deformations in the plate and the three-dimensional (3-D) Boundary Element Method (BEM) to obtain the electric field (and then tractions on the plate surface) in the region exterior to the plate. Self-consistent solutions to the coupled problem are obtained by the relaxation method. Such simulations, especially their dynamic version, has many potential applications such as to understand and design synthetic microjets. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.