Temperature-Dependent Vibrations of Bilayer MicroBeams

Summary:

Microelectronics engineers doing experiments to characterize bimetallic microbeams discovered a perplexing fact: the natural frequencies of such beams do not vary monotonically with temperature.  In this project we are concerned with developing a mathematical model of such beams and analyzing that model to explain the non-monotonicity.   The model has been established and we have used it to explain the phenomenon through numerical computations.

Our current interest in this project is mathematical; we are trying to prove the results that we have established computationally.

Publications:

1. Temperature-Dependent Vibrations of Bilayer MicroBeams, D.S. Ross, A. Cabal, D. Trauernicht, and J. Lebens, Sensors and Actuators 119 (2), 537-542, (2004).

Patents:

1. U.S. Patent # 6,572,220: Beam Micro-Actuator with Tunable or Stable Amplitude Particularly Suited for Ink Jet Printing.  D. S. Ross, A. Cabal, G. Hawkins, J. Lebens, and D.Trauernicht