Innovative design and modelling of a micromechanical relay with electrostatic actuation

The behaviour of a surface-micromachined electrostatic microrelay and the influence of the design parameters on the pull-in voltage and the contact force are analysed by means of finite-element method simulations. Three models have been used and compared-a fully three-dimensional coupled electromechanical numerical simulation using CoSolveEM, a two-dimensional coupled simulation, and a simplified semi-analytical model based on the parallel-plate capacitor approximation-and these have shown good conformity. As a new idea, an extension paddle attached to the contact bar is proposed and the positive influence on the pull-in voltage and the contact force is demonstrated.