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.