Ahn T., Shkel A.

Periodic structures with cyclic symmetry can be found in several engineering systems. Aircraft rotor, turbine blades, satellite antenna dishes, and large space structures are some examples of these structures. Recently, such structures are applied as micromechanical devices for communications due to high quality factor Q and broadband characteristics. Practically, the structural identity in substructures is often destroyed by small differences that result from manufacturing and material tolerances. This deviation from the ideal has been observed to cause localization. In general, most of the previous studies show that mistuning may result in undesirable effects and investigated at the viewpoint of modal response of the overall structure. However, when a periodic structure is applied in MEMS, the dynamic behavior of each substructure is more important than that of the whole structure. In this paper, the combined effects of mistuning and coupling stiffness on vibration behavior of each substructure are investigated. The primary objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of mistuning, coupling stiffness, and driving point on the forced vibration response of each mass in the structure. On the basis of that, one can design effective and reliable MEMS components using periodic structures.