La plupart des problèmes d'ingénierie des deux derniers siècles ont été résolus grâce à des modèles structuraux pour poutres, plaques et coques. Les théories classiques, tels que Euler-Bernoulli, Navier et de Saint-Venant pour les poutres, et Kirchhoff-Love et Mindlin-Reissner pour plaques et coques, ont permis de réduire le problème générique 3-D, dans le problème unidimensionnel pour les poutres et deux dimensionnelle pour les coques et les plaques. Théories raffinés d'ordre supérieur ont été proposées au cours du temps, comme les modèles classiques ne consentez pas à d'obtenir une complète domaine des contraintes et des déformations. La Carrera Unified Formulation (UF) a été proposé au cours de la dernière décennie, et permet de développer un grand nombre de théories structurelles avec un nombre variable d'inconnues principales au moyen d'une notation compacte et se référant à des nuclei fondamentales. Cette formulation unifiée permet de dériver carrément des modèles structurels d'ordre supérieur, pour les poutres, plaques et coques. Dans ce cadre, cette thèse vise à étendre la formulation pour l'analyse des structures fonctionnellement gradués (FGM), en introduisant aussi le problème thermo-mécanique, dans le cas des poutres fonctionnellement gradués. Suite à la formulation unifiée, les variables génériques déplacements sont écrits en termes de fonctions de base, qui multiplie les inconnues. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, de nouvelles fonctions de bases pour la modélisation des coques, qui représentent une approximation trigonométrique des variables déplacements, sont pris en compte / Most of the engineering problems of the last two centuries have been solved thanks to structural models for both beams, and for plates and shells. Classical theories, such as Euler-Bernoulli, Navier and De Saint-Venant for beams, and Kirchhoff-Love and Mindlin- Reissner for plates and shells, permitted to reduce the generic 3-D problem, in onedimensional one for beams and two-dimensional for shells and plates. Refined higher order theories have been proposed in the course of time, as the classical models do not consent to obtain a complete stress/strain field. Carrera Unified Formulation (UF) has been proposed during the last decade, and allows to develop a large number of structural theories with a variable number of main unknowns by means of a compact notation and referring to few fundamental nuclei. This Unified Formulation allows to derive straightforwardly higher-order structural models, for beams, plates and shells. In this framework, this thesis aims to extend the formulation for the analysis of Functionally Graded structures, introducing also the thermo-mechanical problem, in the case of functionally graded beams. Following the Unified Formulation, the generic displacements variables are written in terms of a base functions, which multiplies the unknowns. In the second part of the thesis, new bases functions for shells modelling, accounting for trigonometric approximation of the displacements variables, are considered.

This thesis presents novel radio frequency microelectromechanical (RF MEMS) circuits based on the three-dimensional (3-D) micromachined coplanar transmission lines whose geometry is re-configured by integrated microelectromechanical actuators. Two types of novel RF MEMS devices are proposed. The first is a concept of MEMS capacitors tuneable in multiple discrete and well-defined steps, implemented by in-plane moving of the ground side-walls of a 3-D micromachined coplanar waveguide transmission line. The MEMS actuators are completely embedded in the ground layer of the transmission line, and fabricated using a single-mask silicon-on-insulator (SOI) RF MEMS fabrication process. The resulting device achieves low insertion loss, a very high quality factor, high reliability, high linearity and high self actuation robustness. The second type introduces two novel concepts of area efficient, ultra-wideband, MEMS-reconfigurable coupled line directional couplers, whose coupling is tuned by mechanically changing the geometry of 3-D micromachined coupled transmission lines, utilizing integrated MEMS electrostatic actuators. The coupling is achieved by tuning both the ground and the signal line coupling, obtaining a large tuneable coupling ratio while maintaining an excellent impedance match, along with high isolation and a very high directivity over a very large bandwidth. This thesis also presents for the first time on RF nonlinearity analysis of complex multi-device RF MEMS circuits. Closed-form analytical formulas for the IIP3 of MEMS multi-device circuit concepts are derived. A nonlinearity analysis, based on these formulas and on  measured device parameters, is performed for different circuit concepts and compared to the simulation results of multi-device  conlinear electromechanical circuit models. The degradation of the overall circuit nonlinearity with increasing number of device stages is investigated. Design rules are presented so that the mechanical parameters and thus the IIP3 of the individual device stages can be optimized to achieve a highest overall IIP3 for the whole circuit.The thesis further investigates un-patterned ferromagnetic NiFe/AlN multilayer composites used as advanced magnetic core materials for on-chip inductances. The approach used is to increase the thickness of the ferromagnetic material without increasing its conductivity, by using multilayer NiFe and AlN sandwich structure. This suppresses the induced currents very effectively and at the same time increases the ferromagnetic resonance, which is by a factor of 7.1 higher than for homogeneous NiFe layers of same thickness. The so far highest permeability values above 1 GHz for on-chip integrated un-patterned NiFe layers were achieved. / <p>QC 20140328</p>