Effect of Electrical Contact on the Contact Residual Stress of a Microrelay Switch.docVIP

Sensors 2007, 7, 2997-3011 sensors ISSN 1424-8220 ? 2007 by MDPI /sensors Full Research Paper Effect of Electrical Contact on the Contact Residual Stress of a Microrelay Switch Yung-Chuan Chen 1, Hsun-Heng Tsai 2 , Wei-Hua Lu 3 and Li-Wen Chen 1,* 1 Department of Vehicle Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan, E-mail: chuan@.tw. 2 Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan, E-mail: heng@.tw 3 Department of Material Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan, E-mail: whl@.tw * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: liwen@.tw Received: 12 October 2007 / Accepted: 14 November 2007 / Published: 26 November 2007 Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of electrical contact on the thermal contact stress of a microrelay switch. A three-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element model with contact elements is used to simulate the contact behavior between the microcantilever beam and the electrode. A model with thermal-electrical coupling and thermal-stress coupling is used in the finite element analysis. The effects of contact gap, plating film thickness and number of switching cycles on the contact residual stress, contact force, plastic deformation, and temperature rise of the microrelay switch are explored. The numerical results indicate that the residual stress increases with increasing contact gap or decreasing plating film thickness. The results also show that the residual stress increases as the number of switching cycles increases. A large residual stress inside the microcantilever beam can decrease the lifecycle of the microrelay. Keywords: Microrelay, electrical contact, thermal-electrical coupling, thermal-stress coupling, elastic-plastic finite element model.  Sensors 2007, 7 2998 1. Introduction Microrelays ar