Electromechanical behavior of microcantilever
specimens for in-plane and out-of-plane bending tests,
currently designed by industry for Radio-Frequency
application, are here analyzed. Main features of these two
layouts are discussed. In particular, a comprehensive
experimental validation of 2D and 3D numerical models
implemented to predict the coupled electromechanical
behavior of these microsystems is performed. Effectiveness
of plane models to predict pull-in, in presence of geometric
non-linearity, due to large tip displacement and initial
curvature of microbeam, is investigated. Three dimensional
models are then used to investigate the local effects of the
electric field and the limits of the two dimensional
approach. In addition, this paper investigates the effectiveness
of 2D models to be used as compact numerical
tools in substitution of some known Model Order Reduction
techniques, which unfortunately are unsuitable to
predict simultaneously the effects of both the electromechanical
and geometric non-linearities.
