Stochastic analysis of the elctrothermal microactuator with fabrication error

In order to study the characteristic of the electrothermal microactuator with machining error, the actuator is first fabricated by deep reactive-ion etch (DRIE) technology. Key sizes of the fabricated actuators are measured by microscope. According to the distribution feature of the sizes, normal distribution is chosen and fitted to depict the fabrication error. Based on the joint normal distribution in the sizes, 1000 sample points are decided by Monte Carlo method. Meanwhile, FEM model about the thermal actuator is established so that the static displacement and maximum temperature of the sample points are obtained. With the data processing, the displacement and temperature also meet normal distribution. The displacement of the thermal actuator is more sensitive to the machining tolerance than temperature. The machining error has a great effect on the stiffness of the actuator.