Design and Modeling of a New MEMS Capacitive Microcantilever Sensor for Gas Flow Monitoring

A new capacitive microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microcantilever gas flow sensor is introduced for application in industrial gas flow measurement pipelines. The chip encompasses microcantilevers with different lengths (50, 100, 250, and 400 mu m) and the same thickness and wideness of 2 and 50 mu m, respectively. Besides MEMS sensor development, we have designed a customized bypass channel based on the orifice principle for the placement of the MEMS sensor chip. Accordingly, a minibypass has been designed, which alleviates the harsh flow condition on the sensor that will be placed in the flowmeter housing. Simulations and the experimental study revealed that the sensor is capable of measuring airflows from 0 to 25 m/s with a sensitivity of 2 x 10(-4) pF/m/s, and this can be expanded to other gas flow measurements with a certain bandwidth. This measurement allows us to apply this sensor for measuring moderate flows up to similar to 200 m/s in similar to 10-cm diameter pipes based on the current design for bypass. According to experimental results, the sensor output capacitance varied from 3.3445 to 3.350 pF for a range of airflow between 0 and 25 m/s. We have shown that capacitive microcantilever MEMS flow sensors could be used for flow measurements in heavy-load industrial applications.