Mechanical behavior of a cylindrical capacitive micro - switch compared to a straight beam type

This paper introduces a novel cylindrical capacitive micro-switch which has different pull-in voltage, frequency response and contact area compared to the conventional straight beam switch. After presenting a mathematical model, governing equation of motion of the cylindrical switch has been solved by Galerkin-based reduced order models. The results have shown that the presented model has lower pull-in voltage than straight beam with the same dimensions. Also, the novel model exhibits considerable difference in frequency response in comparison with the other model. By applying the HERTZ relations for the contact area, a mathematical rough estimation for the contact area in switching state has done. The estimated results reveal that the contact area in cylindrical switch is about 56 % of the straight switch with the same dimensions.