Multi-mode excitation of a clamped–clamped microbeam resonator

We present modeling and simulation of the nonlinear dynamics of a microresonator subjected to two-source electrostatic excitation. The resonator is composed of a clamped–clamped beam excited by a DC voltage load superimposed to two AC voltage loads of different frequencies. One frequency is tuned close to the first natural frequency of the beam and the other is close to the third (second symmetric) natural frequency. A multi-mode Galerkin procedure is applied to extract a reduced-order model, which forms the basis of the numerical simulations. Time history response, Poincare’ sections, Fast Fourier Transforms FFT, and bifurcation diagrams are used to reveal the dynamics of the system. The results indicate complex nonlinear phenomena, which include quasiperiodic motion, torus bifurcations, and modulated chaotic attractors.