Electrostatic simulation using XFEM for conductor and dielectric interfaces

Abstract

AbstractMany Micro‐Electro‐Mechanical Systems (e.g. RF‐switches, micro‐resonators and micro‐rotors) involve mechanical structures moving in an electrostatic field. For this type of problems, it is required to evaluate accurately the electrostatic forces acting on the devices. Extended Finite Element (X‐FEM) approaches can easily handle moving boundaries and interfaces in the electrostatic domain and seem therefore very suitable to model Micro‐Electro‐Mechanical Systems. In this study we investigate different X‐FEM techniques to solve the electrostatic problem when the electrostatic domain is bounded by a conducting material. Preliminary studies in one‐dimension have shown that one can obtain good results in the computation of electrostatic potential using X‐FEM. In this paper the extension of these preliminary studies to 2D problem is presented. In particular, a new type of enrichment functions is proposed in order to treat accurately Dirichlet boundary conditions on the interface. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.