Influence of Shape Factor of a Beam Cross-Section on a Heat Transfer Process of the Electrothermal V-Shaped Micro Actuators

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to determine the shape factor in the heat transfer model of silicon electrothermal V-shaped micro actuators by using ANSYS WORKBENCH. The rectangular cross-section model (w-width and h-thickness) is built to investigate the heat transfer from the beam to the substrate through a thin layer of air. Moreover, this model can be used to determine the influence of beam width and beam thickness or height on its shape factor. Through simulation, the lowest heat emission generated on the beam when the height-to-width ratio (h/w) is about from 3 to 4. The shape factor is proportional to the ratio of beam height to beam width as well as the air gap between the V-beam and the substrate. The objective of the paper is to provide an effective method to determine the shape factor in the theoretical heat transfer model of the electrothermal V-shaped micro actuators and can be also applied to similar heat transfer models of other actuators.