Title: Design analysis and fabrication of a piezoelectric valveless diffuser micropump for microfluidics

Authors: Yishu Hao; Meng Zhang; Guoqing Tang

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, No. 4800, Caoan Road, Shanghai, 201804, China ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, No. 4800, Caoan Road, Shanghai, 201804, China ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, No. 4800, Caoan Road, Shanghai, 201804, China

Abstract: Previous experiments have shown that the inlet choking phenomenon was the major reason to make the one-side actuating micropump valve-free, with a flow rate of 0.088 mL/s and a pump head of 45.6 Pa. This research proposes a piezoelectric (PZT) valveless micropump which adopts an integrated diffuser bulge-piece design. The pump mainly consists of a stainless-steel structured chamber with the dimensions of 8 mm in diameter and 70 µm. By adding the stainless-steel structured chamber, the performance can be improved to 1.2 mL/s and 5.3 kPa with the driving voltage of 160 V and frequency ranging from 100 to 550 Hz. Its unique features enable it to perform more accurately and reliably in the fields of biochemical engineering and electronics cooling.

Keywords: pezoelectric actuators; valveless micropumps; simulation; MEMS; microelectromechanical systems; pump design; microfluidics; PZT actuators; diffuser bulge-piece design; biochemical engineering; electronics cooling; stainless steel structured chamber.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMS.2014.062759

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems, 2014 Vol.7 No.1, pp.21 - 37

Received: 18 Jun 2013
Accepted: 06 Nov 2013

Published online: 24 Jul 2014 *

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