Dynamical Integrity for Interpreting Experimental Data and Ensuring Safety in Electrostatic MEMS

A dynamical integrity analysis is performed for an electrostatic micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) device. The analysis starts from the experimental data of dynamic pull-in due to a frequency-sweeping process in a capacitive accelerometer. The loss of dynamical integrity is investigated by curves of constant percentage of integrity factor. We found that these curves follow exactly the experimental data and succeed in interpreting the existence of disturbances. On the other hand, instead, the theoretical curves of disappearance of the attractors represent the limit when disturbances are absent, which never occurs in practice. Also, the obtained behavior chart can serve as a design guideline in order to ensure safety of the device.