Thermal effect on the pull-in instability of functionally graded micro-beams subjected to electrical actuation

The thermal effect on the pull-in instability of functionally graded micro-beams under the combined electrostatic force, temperature change and Casimir force is studied based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and von Karman geometric nonlinearity. Take into consideration the temperature-dependency of the effective material properties, the Voigt model and exponential distribution model is used to simulate the material properties of the functionally graded materials (FGMs). Principle of virtual work is used to derive the nonlinear governing differential equation which is then solved using the differential quadrature method (DQM). A parametric study is conducted to show the significant effects of material composition, temperature change, geometric nonlinearity and Casimir force. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.