ON THE MECHANICAL-BEHAVIOR OF THIN PERFORATED PLATES AND THEIR APPLICATION IN SILICON CONDENSER MICROPHONES

In this paper an alternative approach to the modelling of plates with a large number of holes is presented. By means of plate theory, it is shown that perforated plates can be modelled by conventional orthotrop ic plates with modified elastic properties. The modification of the el astic constants is derived by equalizing the strain-energy of the perf orated and the orthotropic plate. The model obtained is then compared with previous methods and applied in the electromechanical simulation of a silicon micromachined microphone structure. The microphone struct ures are simulated numerically, using an algorithm based on finite dif ferences.