Engineering Technologies Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Bent and folded beam configurations have been popularly used in electrothermoelastic (E-T) actuation. This paper introduces new designs of thermal end-effector with micro-grasping and micro-heating capabilities. We obtained analytical models for all possible steady state temperature responses of suspended and overhanging microstructures that constitute bent beam, folded beam, and combined actuators. Generally, the thermal response of E-T microstructures is sensitive to the boundary conditions, particularly for high power input. Thermal models have predicted the failure due to melting, which is the most common reason for failure of E-T devices, and it often occurs in the longest and the thinnest microstructure.

Publication Date

8-24-2012

Publication Title

Actuators

Publisher

MDPI

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/act1010021

Volume

1

Issue

1

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