COMSOL Day: MEMS

Modeling piezoelectric devices requires a multiphysics approach, where incorporating such models within the design process requires a better understanding of the interactions between structural materials, piezoelectric ceramics, and fluid damping. A more accurate solution for all involved physics reduces development time and prototyping costs. Join this session to gain insight into the most important simulation techniques when it comes to modeling piezoelectric devices.

Meshing microscopic geometries for the purpose of simulation can be challenging for several reasons. For example, widely different mesh sizes may be advantageous or even required from modeling domain to modeling domain. Alternatively, large directional dependencies on mesh accuracy, due to dimensional requirements or anisotropic behavior of the material parameters, need to be accounted for. Join this Tech Café to discuss the challenges of meshing MEMS and other microsystem devices with colleagues, while receiving useful tips from COMSOL technical staff.

Acoustic propagation in structures with submillimeter physical features is common in the components of consumer products like mobile devices, protective grills of loudspeakers, hearing aids, and perforates used in mufflers and sound insulation. To model this accurately, you need to include thermoviscous losses in your definition of the physics. In this session, you will be introduced to modeling techniques used to capture these effects and how to model nonlinear effects in microacoustics systems.

MEMS devices are designed and built in many configurations for a wide range of applications.

One fundamental aspect in the design of such devices is the use and manipulation of different materials. While smart materials such as piezoelectric, piezoresistive, shape memory alloy, and other materials are commonly used, some MEMS devices also incorporate engineered materials such as metamaterials, which exhibit unique electromagnetic or acoustic behavior.

Learn more about the implementation of various special material properties and discuss best practices with interested colleagues in this tech café.

COMSOL Multiphysics^® and the add-on MEMS Module contain all of the modeling components and features necessary for analyzing the combined mechanical and electrical behavior in devices on the microscale. This session will introduce the MEMS Module by summarizing its features and demonstrating examples that analyze MEMS-based sensors, actuators, and filters.

Viscous and thermal damping effects play a significant role in electrical, mechanical, and acoustic behavior at the dimension level of microsystems. This is inherently the case for MEMS devices. In this Tech Café, we will discuss the various damping processes when modeling such systems with colleagues and COMSOL engineers.

MEMS devices for measuring acceleration or orientation in space usually rely on the interaction between electrical and mechanical phenomena. As a consequence, a multiphysics approach often proves necessary to accurately model them. This session will demonstrate how COMSOL Multiphysics^® allows you to easily set up such electromechanical models using built-in features in the software.

It is important for all simulation and design engineers to get an accurate solution as fast as possible for computationally intensive models. This is particularly challenging when it comes to multiphysics models of MEMS devices. Here, you can make use of a number of capabilities in COMSOL Multiphysics^®. For example, there are methods to account for manufacturing variation effects without the need for very fine meshes. You can save resources by using analytical functions for electric fields, if you know the intrinsic features, such as the distances between capacitor plates, which are easy to determine with extrusion operators. Discuss such advanced techniques and ask questions of COMSOL technical staff in this Tech Café to increase your efficiency when modeling MEMS devices.