Finite element computation of electromechanical micro-switches and micro-pump actuators

a new methodology to model the electromechanical behavior of microscale system components is presented. The original approach proposed in this paper is based on a unified FE formulation of the strong electromechanical interaction problem, in which both the electric and the mechanical fields are considered simultaneously. To this aim, finite elements based on the Mindlin shell theory are implemented. In order to illustrate the proposed methodology, numerical results are presented on the modelling and simulation of microscale electromechanical switches and microscale pump actuators.