Modelling of Chevron electrothermal actuator and its performance analysis

Abstract

In this work, a Chevron electrothermal actuator is designed and its analytical model is developed. Chevron actuator works on the principle of Joules heating effect and thermal expansion. Aluminum is chosen as a material for actuator because of its good electrical and thermal properties and also it produces large displacement of about 10.94 µm with lower operating temperature of 448 °C for single beam. The Chevron based electrothermal actuator holds good when compared to the other conversion based conventional microactuators in terms of applied voltage vs displacement achieved. The analytical model is validated by comparing with 3D finite element model. The mathematical modeling is derived and the analytical calculations were performed over the mathematical model. The displacement and temperature results obtained from simulation and analytical models are in good agreement. The comparative results provides the proof for having a better performance in simulation which is again validated by the 0.3% of error with the analytical modeling of the Chevron based electrothermal microactuator.