Neo-Hookean modeling of nonlinear coupled behavior in circular plates supported by micro-pillars

In the contemporary era, the enhancement of wearable capacitive sensors is achieved through the utilization of polymeric micropillars as filler materials between electrode plates. To gain a deeper understanding of the dynamic response of the system, nonlinear coupled governing equations of a circular microplate motion resting on an array of polymeric micropillars have been derived. These equations are used to model the system’s behavior. In addition, the squeezing motion of the micro-pillars is characterized using the incompressible Neo-Hookean model. Both static and dynamic responses, including transient and steady-state solutions, are investigated in detail by discretizing over spatial coordinates using a weak formulation approach. A frequency response analysis is conducted using a continuation-based method. This entails expanding the steady-state solution using a Fourier transform and employing the energy balance principle. The unknown coefficients of the expansion series are calculated using a gradient descent-based learning approach that is physically motivated. Furthermore, a dynamic step size strategy for frequency increments is employed to effectively follow the solution path. This strategy is implemented via the ARC length method. In this study, we examine the impact of varying PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) hydrogel mechanical and geometrical configurations. It can be reasonably concluded that the mechanical properties of the pillars and the geometrical configuration of the circular plate and micropillars have a significant impact on the maximum tolerable pressure, fast transient response, and frequency response analysis.