Predicting the effects of dimensional and material stiffness variations on a compliant bistable microrelay performance

In this paper we investigate the effects of dimensional and material stiffness variations on a microrelay performance. A linear displacement bistable micromechanism is modelled by pseudo-rigid-body model method and fully characterized. To find the effects of dimensional and material stiffness variation, an analysis of mechanical error is used. The method is a stochastic one and takes into account the random nature of variations. Variations of the contact force and required power of a microrelay example is obtained by the method introduced and the performance of the microrelay is determined. The method introduced is a simple, effective and general that may be used at the design level