Investigation of the Squeeze Film Dynamics Underneath a Microstructure With Large Oscillation Amplitudes and Inertia Effects

This paper presents direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) numerical investigation of the dynamic behavior of a gas film in a microbeam. The microbeam undergoes large amplitude harmonic motion between its equilibrium position and the fixed substrate underneath. Unlike previous work in literature, the beam undergoes large displacements throughout the film gap thickness and the behavior of the gas film along with its impact on the moving microstructure (force exerted by gas on the beam's front and back faces) is discussed. Since the gas film thickness is of the order of few microns (i.e., 0.01 < Kn < 1), the rarefied gas exists in the noncontinuum regime and, as such, the DSMC method is used to simulate the fluid behavior. The impact of the squeeze film on the beam is investigated over a range of frequencies and velocity amplitudes, corresponding to ranges of dimensionless flow parameters such as the Reynolds, Strouhal, and Mach numbers on the gas film behavior. Moreover, the behavior of compressibility pressure waves as a function of these dimensionless groups is discussed for different simulation case studies.