A method for simulating the large-displacement actuation of deformable micro-structures is proposed and illustrated in the case of a circular axisymmetric plate. First of all the problem is formulated and its boundary conditions are expressed as functions of the two unknowns, displacements and the Airy stress function. The problem is then split into two parts, each part corresponding to one equation of Von Karman, to which the techniques of modal analysis are applied in order to obtain a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The implementation of the resulting high-level model is then discussed and some simulation results are given, as a basis for comparison.