Reduced order modelling of fully coupled electro-mechanical systems through invariant manifolds with applications to microstructures

This paper presents the first application of the direct parametrisation method for invariant manifolds to a fully coupled multiphysics problem involving the nonlinear vibrations of deformable structures subjected to an electrostatic field. The formulation proposed is intended for model order reduction of electrostatically actuated resonating Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). The continuous problem is first rewritten in a manner that can be directly handled by the parametrisation method, which relies upon automated asymptotic expansions. A new mixed fully Lagrangian formulation is thus proposed which contains only explicit polynomial nonlinearities, which is then discretised in the framework of finite element procedures. Validation is performed on the classical parallel plate configuration, where different formulations using either the general framework, or an approximation of the electrostatic field due to the geometric configuration selected, are compared. Reduced-order models along these formulations are also compared to full-order simulations operated with a time integration approach. Numerical results show a remarkable performance both in terms of accuracy and wealth of nonlinear effects that can be accounted for. In particular, the transition from hardening to softening behaviour of the primary resonance while increasing the constant voltage component of the electric actuation, is recovered. Secondary resonances leading to superharmonic and parametric resonances are also investigated with the reduced-order model.