Abstract
This paper presents the simulation of a z-axis SU-8 capacitive accelerometer. The study consists of a modal analysis of the modeled accelerometer, a study relating capacitance to acceleration, capacitance to deflection, an effective spring constant calculation, and a comparison of results achieved using CoventorWare (R) ANALYZER (TM) and MEMS+(R). A fabricated energy harvester design from [1] was used for modeling and simulation in this study, with a four spring attachment of a 650 mu m x 650 mu m x 110 mu m proof mass of 4.542 x 10(-8) kg. At rest, the spacing between electrodes is 4 mu m along the z-axis, and at 1.5g acceleration, there is 1.9 mu m spacing between electrodes, at which point pull in occurs for a 1V voltage.