Nonlinear behaviour of electrostatically actuated carbon nanotube-based devices

Abstract

In this paper nonlinear behaviour of electrostatically actuated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is investigated. The model comprises a clamped–clamped CNT suspended over a graphite ground electrode plate from which a potential difference is imposed. The actuation is based on ac and dc applied voltages and it is assumed that the neutral axis of bending is stretched when the beam is deflected, and also, the interatomic interaction forces between CNT and ground plate are considered. The versatile Galerkin's method is employed to reduce the nonlinear integral-partial-differential equation of motion to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation in time, and then, the reduced equation is solved by direct numerical integration. In the dc voltage actuation case, the pull-in/pull-out phenomena, hysteresis characteristic, pull-in time duration and the response of the system are studied. The obtained results are compared with the molecular dynamics method. Eventually, a nano-switch immune to input noise is proposed, which relies on the hysteresis characteristic of the system. In combined ac and dc voltage actuations, the vibrational behaviour and nonlinear frequency response of nano-resonator are studied.

Pull-in-free design of electrically actuated carbon nanotube-based NEMS actuator assuming non-parallel electrodes arrangement

“…Consequently, carbon nanotubes were shown to be sole components to build new artificial muscles thanks to their giant elongations and elongation rates, respectively [38]. Furthermore, and in addition to extending the capabilities of artificial muscles to giant strokes and strain rates at extreme temperatures, CNT-based actuator mechanisms provide other possible applications that relate to its light-emitting displaying ability [38], switching capabilities [39,40], transducing and oscillating capacities [41][42][43], and largestroke actuation competencies [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52].…”

Effects of the slip boundary condition on dynamics and pull-in instability of carbon nanotubes conveying fluid

“…Dequesnes et al (2002Dequesnes et al ( , 2004 investigated the deflection and the static pull-in of CNTs under electrostatic actuation considering the Van der Waals force. Rasekh and Khadem (Rasekh et al 2010) studied the static and dynamic behaviour of CNTs under the electrostatic and Van der Waals force. Ouakad and Younis (2010) studied the nonlinear dynamics of CNTs with the clamped-clamped and the cantilever boundary conditions under DC and AC electrical excitations.…”

Bifurcation and pull-in voltages of primary resonance of electrostatically actuated SWCNT cantilevers to include van der Waals effect

“…They showed that increasing the level of the initial curvature increases the amplitude, and decreases the pull-in DC voltage. Rasekh et al [31] used ROM to simulate the static and dynamic behavior to include the pull-in phenomenon of CNT bridges under DC and AC voltage actuation. The increase of the initial gap distance resulted in an increase of the pull-in voltage.…”