Frequency response of an accelerometer based on thermal convection

In this work, the design of a micromachined thermal accelerometer based on convection effect was studied. The accelerometer sensitivity and especially the frequency response have been experimentally and numerically studied as a function of the cavity volume, the nature and the pressure of the gas. Although this type of sensor has already been intensively examined, few works on experimental studies concerning the frequency response is currently available. In particular, no experimental result about frequency response versus the nature of the gas media and their pressure variation was reported in the literature. In special condition, we assumed that a bandwidth greater than 300 Hz has been measured without electronic signal treatment. By using numerical resolution of fluid dynamics equations with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package Fluent V6.2 a good accordance with the experimental results has been demonstrated.. So, the effects of the above parameters like the volume and the gas media on the thermal accelerometer response have been theoretically, experimentally and numerically investigated.