Investigation of a 3-D Capacitor Micro Strain Gauge for Applications in Biomedical and Industrial Health Monitoring

Abstract

The behavior of a Capacitive Micro Strain Gauge, CMSG, consisting of two parallel plates embedded in a dielectric media, is investigated analytically and numerically. Of the particular interests to this study is the application of the Capacitive Micro Strain Gauge in on-a-chip systems for biomedical and industrial health monitoring. A combination of analytical and numerical approaches is presented to extract strain components from capacitance. The studies show that capacitance is affected by the size of dielectric. It is also explored to be a function of normal components of strain while shear components have no effect on capacitance. A suitable approach is presented to shift the actual capacitance to the theoretical capacitance.