An electrical model for simulating the dynamics of a cantilever beam

Cantilever beams can be used as transducers for chemical, physical and biological sensors. An example, the extra-mass on these devices, coming from desorption/absorption processes, can be detected by measuring the variation of the first resonance frequency. An accurate model of the dynamic behavior of the cantilever is highly desirable both in the design and calibration phases of such a device. Moreover, vibrations along higher-order eigenfrequencies represent disturbances, so that damping vibration strategies are useful to increase the sensitivity of the measuring system. In this paper, a study of an appropriate model of the cantilever system has been conducted for an accurate prediction of its dynamics.