Design and FEM Analysis of a New and Simple Electro-Thermal Actuated Microgripper

In this paper, the dynamic and electric analysis of a novel electrostatically actuated microdevice is presented. This device consist of an arrangement of four parallel microcantilevers, which is fed with 1 V. The analysis was carried out by Finite Element Method (FEM) in Ansys Workbench in order to obtain: current intensity, temperature distribution, Joule effect, structural deformation, natural frequency, and reaction force, which characterize the microgripper performance. The material used in the analysis was Silicon. A thermoelastic model, that describes the behavior mechanical of the device, is developed. The device had an initial gap of 28 μm and a final gap of ~ 4 μm, the force of subjection in grippers is 0.4 μN.