A new approach to the electrostatic pull-in instability of nanocantilever actuators using the ADM-Padé technique

In this paper, theAdomiandecompositionmethod and Padé approximants are integrated to study thedeflection andpull-in instability of nanocantilever electromechanical switches. In a distributed parameter model, intermolecular forces, including Casimir forces, are taken into account considering their range of application. A closed form power series solution based on Adomian polynomials is obtained. The obtained analytic results are compared with numerical solution. The Adomian method is accurate for small deflections, but the results of a pull-in instability study demonstrate that the accuracy of the Adomian solution is not as good for small deflections. Thus, to increase the accuracy of the Adomian solution for the pull-in instability, the Adomian power series is converted to Padé approximants. The results of the present method are compared with the numerical results as well as those of the Adomian decompositionmethod and othermethods reported in the literature. The results obtained using the ADM–Padé are remarkably accurate compared with the numerical results. The proposed technique can be easily extended to solve a wide range of instability problems. Finally, the minimum initial gap and the detachment length of the actuator that does not stick to the substrate due to the intermolecular attractions, which is an important parameter for the pull-in instability of a nanocantilever actuator, are calculated using Adomian–Padé approximants. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.