Reduced order thermal modeling of a one-dimensional electrothermally actuated micromirror device

Abstract

A reduced order thermal model of a one-dimensional (1D) electrothermally actuated micromirror device is reported. Thermal bimorphs with integrated Pt resistors are used for generating the angular rotation. Neglecting the temperature variation perpendicular to the length of the bimorphs, a 2D finite element thermal model with 4647 nodes is built. The accuracy of the model is verified by comparing the simulation results with thermal imaging data. Using a Krylov subspace based algorithm, a reduced order model is extracted from the finite element model. Results obtained from a reduced model with order ≥ 5 agree well with finite element results. Hence, a reduced order thermal model that saves computation time and resources without compromising the computation accuracy has been demonstrated.