Optimum Design of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) and extremal materials
Professor Ole Sigmund
Technical University of Denmark
MEMS are microscopic mechanical systems coupled with electronic circuits
which are manufactured using processes known from the semi-conductor
industry. Examples of MEMS are air-bag sensors, hearing aids and devices
for surface characterization.
Up to now, design of MEMS has been based on intuition, scaling of
existing designs and trial and error approaches. A promising approach
to systematic design of MEMS is topology optimization. The talk will
describe the extensions of the topology optimization method that are
required to design various MEMS modelled in multiple physical domains.
The extensions include interpolation schemes for multi-material
structures, geometrically non-linear modelling and sensitivity analysis
for coupled problems.
Examples will demonstrate the systematic design of compliant mechanical
converters, multi-degree-of-freedom, electrothermomechanical actuators
and membrane structures for microphone applications.
If time permits, the talk will be concluded with a short discussion on
topology optimization methods applied to extremal material design.
Examples of this include materials with counterintuitive properties
such as negative Poisson's ratio and negative thermal expansion
coefficient.
