Advances in Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Cone-shaped Tubes

This paper reviews the development of valve- less piezoelectric pump with cone-shaped tube chrono- logically, which have widely potential application in biomedicine and micro-electro-mechanical systems because of its novel principles and deduces the research direction in the future. Firstly, the history of valveless piezoelectric pumps with cone-shaped tubes is reviewed and these pumps are classified into the following types： single pump with solid structure or plane structure, and combined pump with parallel structure or series structure. Furthermore, the function of each type of cone-shaped tubes and pump structures are analyzed, and new direc- tions of potential expansion of valveless piezoelectric pumps with cone-shaped tubes are summarized and deduced. The historical argument, which is provided by the literatures, that for a valveless piezoelectric pump with cone-shaped tubes, cone angle determines the flow resistance and the flow resistance determines the flow direction. The argument is discussed in the reviewed pumps one by one, and proved to be convincing. Finally, it is deduced that bionics is pivotal in the development of valveless piezoelectric pump with cone-shaped tubes fromthe perspective of evolution of biological structure. This paper summarizes the current valveless piezoelectric pumps with cone-shaped tubes and points out the future development, which may provide guidance for the research of piezoelectric actuators.

FLOW DIRECTION OF PIEZOELECTRIC PUMP WITH NOZZLE/DIFFUSER-ELEMENTS

The piezoelectric pump with nozzle/diffuser-elements, which oscillating formdiffering from regular volumetric reciprocating or rotating pumps because there arenozzle/diffuser-elements substituted for regular valves, is a new type pump whose actuator is apiezoelectric ceramal part with verse piezoelectric effect In recent year, piezoelectric pump ispaid increasing attention to because it is an ideal candidate in application in such area as medicalhealth, mechanical tools and micro-mechanism. The fundamental research on it, however, is still notmade through. Focuses on the phenomenon of different directions of flow among Germany pump, Chinesepump and Swiss pump, which are all fitted with nozzle/diffuser-elements, and analyzes the coneangle of nozzle/diffuser-elements based on the flow equation of valve-less piezoelectric pump withnozzle/diffuser-elements. As a result, the concepts of diffuser toss coefficient and losscoefficient are introduced to explain these phenomena, from which a discussion is given on theoptimization of the cone angle of nozzle/diffuser-element aiming at the maximum of pump flow.

Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Verification on Valve-less Piezoelectric Pump with Hemisphere-segment Bluff-body

Existing researches on no-moving part valves in valve-less piezoelectric pumps mainly concentrate on pipeline valves and chamber bottom valves, which leads to the complex structure and manufacturing process of pump channel and chamber bottom. Furthermore, position fixed valves with respect to the inlet and outlet also makes the adjustability and controllability of flow rate worse. In order to overcome these shortcomings, this paper puts forward a novel implantable structure of valve-less piezoelectric pump with hemisphere-segments in the pump chamber. Based on the theory of flow around bluff-body, the flow resistance on the spherical and round surface of hemisphere-segment is different when fluid flows through, and the macroscopic flow resistance differences thus formed are also different. A novel valve-less piezoelectric pump with hemisphere-segment bluff-body （HSBB） is presented and designed. HSBB is the no-moving part valve. By the method of volume and momentum comparison, the stress on the bluff-body in the pump chamber is analyzed. The essential reason of unidirectional fluid pumping is expounded, and the flow rate formula is obtained. To verify the theory, a prototype is produced. By using the prototype, experimental research on the relationship between flow rate, pressure difference, voltage, and frequency has been carried out, which proves the correctness of the above theory. This prototype has six hemisphere-segments in the chamber filled with water, and the effective diameter of the piezoelectric bimorph is 30mm. The experiment result shows that the flow rate can reach 0.50 mL/s at the frequency of 6 Hz and the voltage of 110 V. Besides, the pressure difference can reach 26.2 mm H20 at the frequency of 6 Hz and the voltage of 160 V. This research proposes a valve-less piezoelectric pump with hemisphere-segment bluff-body, and its validity and feasibility is verified through theoretical analysis and experiment.

Piezoelectric Pump Used in Bionic Underwater Propulsion Unit

A new piezoelectric pump can pump liquid either forward or backward and adjust the flow rate. Thus an object can be driven forward or backward at different speeds. The driver of the pump, a circular piezoelectric plate, is modelled by Finite Element Method （FEM） in ANSYS and its performance is simulated and analyzed. The pump gives the best performance when the driving signals of the inlet and outlet valves have a bigger duty cycle and the plate has a higher voltage applied.

Effects of Driving Mode on the Performance of Multiple-Chamber Piezoelectric Pumps with Multiple Actuators

Due to the limited output capability of piezoelectric diaphragm pumps, the driving voltage is frequently increased to obtain the desired output. However, the excessive voltage application may lead to a large deformation in the piezoelectric ceramics, which could cause it to breakdown or become damaged. Therefore, increasing the number of chambers to obtain the desired output is proposed. Using a check-valve quintuple-chamber pump with quintuple piezoelectric actuators, the characteristics of the pump under different driving modes are investigated through experiments. By changing the number and connection mode of working actuators, pump performances in terms of flow rate and backpressure are tested at a voltage of 150 V with a frequency range of 60 Hz -400 Hz. Experiment results indicate that the properties of the multiple-chamber pump change significantly with distinct working chambers even though the number of pumping chambers is the same. Pump performance declines as the distance between the working actuators increases. Moreover, pump performance declines dramatically when the working piezoelectric actuator closest to the outlet is involved. The maximum backpressures of the pump with triple, quadruple, and quintuple actuators are increased by 39%, 83%, and 128%, respectively, compared with the pump with double working actuators; the corresponding maximum flow rates of the pumps are simply increased by 25.9%, 49.2%, and 67.8%, respectively. The proposed research offers practical guidance for the effective utilization of the multiple-chamber pumps under different driving modes.

Simulation Analysis and Experimental Verification of Spiral-tube-type Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Gyroscopic Effect

The current research of the valveless piezoelectric pump focuses on increasing the flow rate and pressure differential. Compared with the valve piezoelectric pump, the valveless one has excellent performances in simple structure, low cost, and easy miniaturization. So, their important development trend is the mitigation of their weakness, and the multi-function integration. The flow in a spiral tube element is sensitive to the element attitude caused by the Coriolis force, and that a valveless piezoelectric pump is designed by applying this phenomenon. The pump has gyroscopic effect, and has both the actuator function of fluid transfer and the sensor function, which can obtain the angular velocity when its attitude changes. First, the present paper analyzes the flow characteristics in the tube, obtains the calculation formula for the pump flow, and identifies the relationship between pump attitude and flow, which clarifies the impact of flow and driving voltage, frequency, spiral line type and element attitude, and verifies the gyroscopic effect of the pump. Then, the finite element simulation is used to verify the theory. Finally, a pump is fabricated for experimental testing of the relationship between pump attitude and pressure differential. Experimental results show that when Archimedes spiral θ=4π is selected for the tube design, and the rotation speed of the plate is 70 r/min, the pressure differential is 88.2 Pa, which is 1.5 times that of 0 r/min rotation speed. The spiral-tube-type valveless piezoelectric pump proposed can turn the element attitude into a form of pressure output, which is important for the multi-function integration of the valveless piezoelectric pump and for the development of civil gyroscope in the future.

Theory and Experimental Verification on Cymbal-shaped Slotted Valve Piezoelectric Pump

Valve piezoelectric pumps usually have larger flow rate than that of valveless ones. However, the traditional cantilever valve easily induces stress concentration which impacts the reliability of pumps. Therefore, a cymbal-shaped slotted check valve is proposed to be applied in a piezoelectric pump in order to reduce the stress concentration of the valve and thus improve the reliability of the piezoelectric pump. The structure and working principle of the piezoelectric pump are analyzed; the stress analysis of the cymbal-shaped slotted valve diaphragm is conducted. In addition, finite element software is employed to analyze the difference of the Von-Mises stress between the cymbal-shaped slotted diaphragm and the slotted flat diaphragm. The simulation results show that, the Von-Mises stress of cymbal-shaped slotted diaphragm is smaller than that of the slotted flat one. Furthermore, the cymbal-shaped slotted valve piezoelectric pump is also fabricated, and flow rate experiment is performed. The experimental results indicate that the flow rate of piezoelectric pump working in low frequencies(0 Hz < f< 50 Hz) is larger than that working in high frequencies(200 Hz < f< 2000 Hz). When driven at voltage of 160 V and frequency of 5 Hz, the pump reaches its maximum flow rate of 6.6 g/min. The experimental results validate the feasibility of the cymbal-shaped slotted check valve. This research can effectively solve the problem of stress concentration of valve piezoelectric pumps and is helpful for improving the reliability of them.

3D FEM Analyses on Flow Field Characteristics of the Valveless Piezoelectric Pump

Due to the special transportation and heat transfer characteristics,the fractal-like Y-shape branching tube is used in valveless piezoelectric pumps as a no-moving-part valve.However,there have been little analyses on the flow resistance of the valveless piezoelectric pump,which is critical to the performance of the valveless piezoelectric pump with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes.Flow field of the piezoelectric pump is analyzed by the finite element method,and the pattern of the velocity streamlines is revealed,which can well explain the difference of total flow resistances of the piezoelectric pump.Besides,simplified numerical method is employed to calculate the export flow rate of piezoelectric pump,and the flow field of the piezoelectric pump is presented.The FEM computation shows that the maximum flow rate is 16.4 m L/min.Compared with experimental result,the difference between them is just 55.5%,which verifies the FEM method.The reasons of the difference between dividing and merging flow resistance of the valveless piezoelectric pump with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes are also investigated in this method.The proposed research provides the instruction to design of novel piezoelectric pump and a rapid method to analyse the pump flow rate.

DISCOVERY AND ANALYSIS ON CAVI TATION IN PIEZOELECTRIC PUMPS

The contributing factors for the cavitation in piezoelectric pumps areanalyzed, theoretically, and the device fitting for observing and recording is set up. With it theexperiments are carried out to observe the emergence and the flowing of the cavitations in thepiezoelectric pumps. According to the statistic and the analysis to the data of the experiments, thepeculiar features are discovered. These features are composed of balls-amassing, center-more, andflow-out.

Analysis on Flow Field of the Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Two Inlets and One Outlet and a Rotating Unsymmetrical Slopes Element

Typically,liquid pump and liquids mixer are two separate devices.The invention of piezoelectric pump makes it possible to integrate the two devices.Hower,the existing piezoelectric mixing-pumps are larger because the need the space outside the chamber,and another shortcome of them is that they cannot adjust the mixing ratio of two liquids.In this paper,a new piezoelectric pump being capable of integrating mixer and pump is presented,based on the theory of the piezoelectric pump with the unsymmetrical slopes element（USE）.Besides the features of two inlets and one outlet,the piezoelectric pump has a rotatable unsymmetrical slopes element（RUSE）.When the pump works,two fluids flow into the inlet channels respectively.Then the RUSE controls the ratio of the two flows by adjusting the flow resistances of the two inlet channels.The fluids form a net flow due to the USE principle,while they are mixed into a homogeneous solution due to strong turbulence flow field and complex vortices generated by RUSE in the chamber.And then the solution flows through the outlet.Firstly,the theoretical analysis on this pump is performed.Meanwhile,the flow field in the chamber is calculated and simulated.And then,the relationship between the flows of the two channels and the rotating angle of the RUSE is set up and analyzed.Finally,experiment with the proposed pump is carried out to verify the numerical results.A RUSE with 20° slope angle is used in the experiment.Four sets of data are tested with the RUSE at the rotating angles of 0°,6°,11°,and 16°,respectively,corresponding to the numerical models.The experimental results show that the empirical data and the theoretical data share the same trend.The maximum error between the theoretical flow and the experimental flow is 11.14%,and the maximum error between the theoretical flow ratio of the two inlets and the experimental one is 2.5%.The experiment verified the theoretical analysis.The proposed research provides a new idea for integration of micro liquids mixer and micro liquids pump.

Multi-Field Analysis and Experimental Verification on Piezoelectric Valve-Less Pumps Actuated by Centrifugal Force

A piezoelectric centrifugal pump was developed previously to overcome the low frequency responses of piezoelectric pumps with check valves and liquid reflux of conventional valveless piezoelectric pumps. However, the electro-mechanical-fluidic analysis on this pump has not been done. Therefore, multi-field analysis and experimen- tal verification on piezoelectrically actuated centrifugal valveless pumps are conducted for liquid transport appli- cations. The valveless pump consists of two piezoelectric sheets and a metal tube with piezoelectric elements pushing the metal tube to swing at the first bending resonant fre- quency. The centrifugal force generated by the swinging motion will force the liquid out of the metal tube. The governing equations for the solid and fluid domains are established, and the coupling relations of the mechanical, electrical and fluid fields are described. The bending res- onant frequency and bending mode in solid domain are discussed, and the liquid flow rate, velocity profile, and gauge pressure are investigated in fluid domain. The working frequency and flow rate concerning different components sizes are analyzed and verified through experiments to guide the pump design. A fabricated pro- totype with an outer diameter of 2.2 mm and a length of 80 mm produced the largest flow rate of 13.8 mL/min at backpressure of 0.8 kPa with driving voltage of 80 Vpp. Bysolving the electro-mechanical-fluidic coupling problem, the model developed can provide theoretical guidance on the optimization of centrifugal valveless pump characters.

Fluid Pump Using a Bar-shaped Piezoelectric Transducer

There are two kinds of piezoelectric pumps:check valve pumps and valve-less pumps.Whether to use a check valve or not depends upon the application occasion.To achieve large backpressure for higher flow rates,the pump with check valve is desirable.However,adding check valves implies more complex structure and higher probability of valve blocking,etc.In order to solve the problem,effective driving and transport mechanics with compact construction and reliable service are being sought.In this paper,using the second-order longitudinal vibration mode of a bar-shaped piezoelectric vibrator for driving fluid,a piezoelectric pump is successfully made.The proposed piezoelectric pump consists of coaxial cylindrical shells and a bar-shaped piezoelectric vibrator,which has a disk part and a cone part.The lead zirconium titanate ceramic rings fixed in the vibrator are polarized along the thickness direction.When the second-order longitudinal vibration of the vibrator along its axis is excited,the disk part of the vibrator changes periodically the volume of the chamber and the cone part acts as a pin valve,driving the fluid from the inlet port to the outlet port.Finite elements analysis on the proposed pump model is carried out to verify its operation principle and design by the commercial FEM software ANSYS.Components of the piezoelectric pump were manufactured,assembled,and tested for flow rate and backpressure to validate the concepts of the proposed pump and confirm the simulation results of modal and harmonic analyses.The test results show that the performance of the proposed piezoelectric pump is about 910 mL/min in flow rate with a highest pressure level of 1.5 kPa under 400 V peak-to-peak voltage and 51.7 kHz operating frequency.It is confirmed that this bar-shaped piezoelectric transducer can be effectively applied in fluid transferring mechanism of pump through this research.

A valveless piezoelectric pump with novel flow path design of function of rectification to improve energy efficiency

Existing valveless piezoelectric pumps are mostly based on the flow resistance mechanism to generate unidirectional fluid pumping,resulting in inefficient energy conversion because the majority of mechanical energy is consumed in terms of parasitic loss.In this paper,a novel tube structure composed of a Y-shaped tube and aȹ-shaped tube was proposed considering theory of jet inertia and vortex dissipation for the first time to improve energy efficiency.After verifying its feasibility through the flow field simulation,the proposed tubes were integrated into a piezo-driven chamber,and a novel valveless piezoelectric pump with the function of rectification(NVPPFR)was reported.Unlike previous pumps,the reported pump directed the reflux fluid to another flow channel different from the pumping fluid,thus improving pumping efficiency.Then,mathematical modeling was established,including the kinetic analysis of vibrator,flow loss analysis of fluid,and pumping efficiency.Eventually,experiments were designed,and results showed that NVPPFR had the function of rectification and net pumping effect.The maximum flow rate reached 6.89 mL/min,and the pumping efficiency was up to 27%.The development of NVPPFR compensated for the inefficiency of traditional valveless piezoelectric pumps,broadening the application prospect in biomedicine and biology fields.

Theoretical Calculations and Experimental Verification for the Pumping Effect Caused by the Dynamic Micro-tapered Angle

The atomizer with micro cone apertures has advantages of ultra-fine atomized droplets, low power consumption and low temperature rise. The current research of this kind of atomizer mainly focuses on the performance and its application while there is less research of the principle of the atomization. Under the analysis of the dispenser and its micro-tapered aperture＇s deformation, the volume changes during the deformation and vibration of the micro-tapered aperture on the dispenser are calculated by coordinate transformation. Based on the characters of the flow resistance in a cone aperture, it is found that the dynamic cone angle results from periodical changes of the volume of the micro-tapered aperture of the atomizer and this change drives one-way flows. Besides, an experimental atomization platform is established to measure the atomization rates with different resonance frequencies of the cone aperture atomizer. The atomization performances of cone aperture and straight aperture atomizers are also measured. The experimental results show the existence of the pumping effect of the dynamic tapered angle. This effect is usually observed in industries that require low dispersion and micro- and nanoscale grain sizes, such as during production of high-pressure nozzles and inhalation therapy. Strategies to minimize the pumping effect of the dynamic cone angle or improve future designs are important concerns. This research proposes that dynamic micro-tapered angle is an important cause of atomization of the atomizer with micro cone apertures.

Design and identification of a double-acting piezoelectric-hydraulic hybrid actuator

Traditional single-acting piezoelectric-hydraulic hybrid actuators usually have the problem of inertial force caused by flow pulsation of the liquid,which degrades their output performance.To suppress or solve the associated inertial force and enhance its output capabilities,this paper proposes a new type of double-acting piezoelectric-hydraulic hybrid actuator with four check valves acting as mechanical diodes.The new hybrid actuator was fabricated and its output performance was tested.When the voltage is 700 Vp-pand the bias pressure is 2 MPa,the pulsation ratesδof the new actuator at 400 Hz,500 Hz and 600 Hz are 2.29,2.08 and 1.78,respectively,whileδof the single-acting hybrid actuator under the same conditions are 10.98,11.05 and 17.12.Therefore,the liquid pulsation rate of the new hybrid actuator is significantly reduced,which is beneficial for improving the flow uniformity and weakening the influence of inertial force on the hybrid actuator.This strategy ultimately leads to a maximum no-load velocity of 168.1 mm/s at 600 Hz and a maximum blocking force of 141 N at 450 Hz for the new hybrid actuator.In addition,this strategy has the potential to be used in other electrohydrostatic actuators to improve their performance.

DEVELOPMENT OF SINGLE-PHASED WATER-COOLING RADIATOR FOR COMPUTER CHIP

In order to cool computer chip efficiently with the least noise, a single phase water-cooling radiator for computer chip driven by piezoelectric pump with two parallel-connection chambers is developed. The structure and work principle of this radiator is described. Material, processing method and design principles of whole radiator are also explained. Finite element analysis （FEA） software, ANSYS, is used to simulate the heat distribution in the radiator. Testing equipments for water-cooling radiator are also listed. By experimental tests, influences of flowrate inside the cooling system and fan on chip cooling are explicated. This water-cooling radiator is proved more efficient than current air-cooling radiator with comparison experiments. During cooling the heater which simulates the working of computer chip with different power, the water-cooling radiator needs shorter time to reach lower steady temperatures than current air-cooling radiator.