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.

Theory and Experimental Verification on Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Multistage Y-shape Treelike Bifurcate Tubes

Among most traditional piezo water cooling systems, piezoelectric valve pumps are adopted as their driving sources. The valves in these pumps induce problems of shock and vibration and also make their structure complicated, which is uneasy to minimize and reduce their reliability and applicability of the whole system. In order to avoid these problems caused by valve structure, a novel valveless piezoelectric pump is developed, which integrates both functions of transforming and cooling. The pump’s Y-shape tree-like construction not only increases the efficiency of cooling but also the system reliability and applicability. Firstly, a multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tube is proposed, then a valveless piezoelectric pump with multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tubes is designed and its working principle is analyzed. Then, the theoretical analysis of flow resistance characteristics and the flow rate of the valveless piezoelectric pump are performed. Meanwhile, commercial software CFX is employed to perform the numerical simulation for the pump. Finally, this valveless piezoelectric pump is fabricated, the relationship between the flow rates and driving frequency, as well as the relationship between the back pressure and the driving frequency are experimentally investigated. The experimental results show that the maximum flow rate is 35.6 mL/min under 100 V peak-to-peak voltage (10.3 Hz) power supply, and the maximum back pressure is 55 mm H2O under 100 V (9 Hz) power supply, which validates the feasibility of the valveless piezoelectric pump with multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tubes. The proposed research provides certain references for the design of valveless piezoelectric pump and improves the reliability of piezo water cooling systems.

Analysis of the Flow Rate Characteristics of Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Fractal-like Y-shape Branching Tubes

Microchannel heat sink with high heat transfer coefficients has been extensively investigated due to its wide application prospective in electronic cooling. However, this cooling system requires a separate pump to drive the fluid transfer, which is uneasy to minimize and reduces their reliability and applicability of the whole system. In order to avoid these problems, valveless piezoelectric pump with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes is proposed. Fractal-like Y-shape branching tube used in microchannel heat sinks is exploited as no-moving-part valve of the valveless piezoelectric pump. In order to obtain flow characteristics of the pump, the relationship between tube structure and flow rate of the pump is studied. Specifically, the flow resistances of fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes and flow rate of the pump are analyzed by using fractal theory. Then, finite element software is employed to simulate the flow field of the tube, and the relationships between pressure drop and flow rate along merging and dividing flows are obtained. Finally, valveless piezoelectric pumps with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes with different fractal dimensions of diameter distribution are fabricated, and flow rate experiment is conducted. The experimental results show that the flow rate of the pump increases with the rise of fractal dimension of the tube diameter. When fractal dimension is 3, the maximum flow rate of the valveless pump is 29.16 mL/min under 100 V peak to peak （13 Hz） power supply, which reveals the relationship between flow rate and fractal dimensions of tube diameter distribution. This paper investigates the flow characteristics of valveless piezoelectric pump with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes, which provides certain references for valveless piezoelectric pump with fractal-like Y-shape branching tubes in application on electronic chip cooling.

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.

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.

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.

Design and fabrication process of electromagnetically actuated valveless micropump with two parallel flexible diaphragms

A parallel dynamic passive valveless micropump was designed, which consists of three layers-valve, diaphragm and electromagnetic coil. The valve was wetly etched in a silicon wafer, the diaphragm was a PDMS （polydimethyl siloxane） film spun on a silicon wafer with embedded permanent magnet posts, and the coil was electroplated on a silicon substrate. Under the actuation of the magnetic field generated by coils, the flexible diaphragm could be displaced upwards and downwards. After analyzing magnetic and mechanical characteristic of the flexible membrane and direction-dependence of the nozzle, a micropump was designed. And the relative length （L/d） of the micropump nozzle was taken 4. A 7 × 7 array of permanent magnetic posts was embedded in the PDMS film. Two diaphragms worked in an anti-step mode, which could relieve the liquid shock and increase the discharge of the micropump. The ANSYS and Matlab were adopted to analyze the actuation effect of the coil and the flow characteristic of the micropump. Results show that when actuated under a 0.3 A, 100 Hz current, the displacement of the diaphragm is more than 30 μm, and the discharge of the micropump is about 6 μL/s.

Effects of structural parameters and rigidity of driving diaphragm on flow characteristics of micro valveless pump

The structure and operating principle of micro valveless pump were investigated theoretically and experimentally. The mathematical model of pressure and flow rate within the micro nozzle/diffuser was established to analyze the effects of nozzle/diffuser parameters on the output flow rate of the micro valveless pump.The experiments were carried out with different structural parameters, driving frequencies, vibration amplitudes and stiffness of the driving diaphragms. Effects of the structural parameters and driving conditions on the operation performance of the pump are discussed in detail. The work provides useful reference for structure optimization selection of the driving diaphragm of micro valveless pump.

无阀纳米泵中水流的反常堵塞

对于颗粒物质,在锥形通道的窄口处容易发生堵塞现象,实验中通常利用机械振动进行疏通.而对于无孔不入的水却不同,即使在纳米尺度的碳纳米管中仍然可以快速通透.本文利用分子动力学模拟研究了由锥形碳纳米管与石墨烯平面构成的无阀纳米泵,发现水输运在一定条件下也会出现反常堵塞.与颗粒物质截然不同的是振动方法无法恢复水流,相反,它促使水在纳米水泵的通道窄口处发生堵塞.通过分析堵塞区水的密度分布、氢键寿命、水分子的结构特征,揭示了反常堵塞是由腔体中振动膜的高频振动引发水的结构相变造成的.

箭头型阻流体无阀压电泵的设计与试验

针对三棱柱阻流体无阀压电泵输出流量小的问题,基于箭头结构流阻小的特点设计了一种箭头型阻流体无阀压电泵,介绍了该泵的结构及工作原理。利用有限元软件模拟仿真了箭头型阻流体无阀压电泵的泵腔速度流线图,并将该泵与三棱柱阻流体无阀压电泵的阻力特性进行了对比分析。结果表明,箭头型阻流体无阀压电泵能单向运输流体,且其效率较三棱柱阻流体无阀压电泵提升了19.51%。利用3D打印机制作了2种泵的样机,进行了流量和压差试验。试验结果表明,在300 V的驱动电压下,箭头型阻流体无阀压电泵的最大流量和压差分别为17.40 g/min和470 Pa,较三棱柱阻流体无阀压电泵分别提升了22.71%和37.03%。

Dynamics analysis and experiment on the fishtailing type of valveless piezoelectric pump with rectangular vibrator

In recent years, the research and development of piezoelectric pumps have become an increasingly popular topic. Minimization, structure simplification and stronger output become the focus of piezoelectric pumps’ research due to its possible application in MEMS technology. The valveless fishtailing piezoelectric pump, neither a volumetric nor a rotating pump, was invented according to the bionics of fish swimming. With assumption that the head of the fish is fixed while its tail is swinging, fluid would flow toward the end of the tail, achieving the function of a valveless pump. This type of pumps creates a new branch for the piezoelectric pump research, which is proposed for the first time in this paper. The relationship between the flow rates and vibrating frequencies was derived from the interaction between the vibrator and fluid. Numerical simulations with FEM software were conducted to study the first and second vibration modes of the piezoelectric vibrator. The results showed that the maximum amplitude of the vibrator was 0.9 mm at the frequency of 76 Hz for the first vibration mode, while the maximum amplitude of the vibrator was 0.22 mm at the frequency of 781 Hz for the second vibration mode. Experiments were conducted with the Doppler laser vibration measurement system, and the results were compared to those of the FEM simulation. It was shown that in the first vibration mode the piezoelectric vibrator reached its maximum amplitude of about 0.9 mm at the driving frequency of 49 Hz, which gives the flow rate of 2.0 mL/min, in the second vibration mode, the maximum amplitude was about 0.25 mm at the frequency of 460 Hz with the flow rate being 6.4 mL/min.

Numerical simulation of a thermal-bubble actuated diffuser-nozzle valveless pump

A valveless micropump actuated by thermal bubbles which are generated by an electrode heater mounted with a pair of diffuser nozzles has been numerically studied by commercial CFD software FLUENT. The relationships between the net flow rate and the superheating and heat supplying frequency have been investigated. The depth of the diffuser-nozzle micropump is 200 μm, the diameter of the actuating chamber is 1 mm, and a pair of diffuser nozzles whose gap has been expanded from 30 μm to 274 μm with an open angle of 7° are connected to the actuating chamber. The working fluid is methanol. In the numerical simulation, the flow pattern is laminar. The results show that the pump has different optimal driving frequencies at different superheating. A cycle resulting from bubble growth and shrinking costs more time at higher superheating temperature; different superheating has different optimal driving frequency; when the superheating increases, the maximum volume flow rate and the maximum pump pressure will increase simultaneously, and the optimal driving frequency decreases as well, the maximum volume flow rate and pump pressure also have the same tendency; in the condition of uncontrolled condensing, the bubble shrinking process is longer than the growth process, thus it is the determining factor to affect the pump performance. The maximum volume flow rate is 9.02 μL/min at △T = 15℃, and the maximum pump pressure is 680 Pa. With the increase of wall superheat, cycle including the bubble growth and condensation will become longer, resulting in a significant impact on the pumping flow; different wall superheat has different optimized frequency, increasing superheat will bring increased pumping flow and pump pressure, the optimized driving frequency will be reduced; liquid supply phase is longer than pumping phase.

A theoretical and 1-D numerical investigation on a valve/valveless air-breathing pulse detonation engine

The important operating characteristics of pulsed Pressure Gain Combustion(PGC)propulsion are the pressure gain of the combustor component and the propulsive performance gain of the engine.A ramjet-type valve/valveless air-breathing pulsed detonation engine with a supersonic internal compression inlet is investigated.Based on an ideal thermal cycle,the ideal equivalent pressure ratios(pcb)of the Pulsed Detonation Combustor(PDC)are obtained theoretically which are directly related with the propulsive performance of the engine.By introducing an orifice loss model into the cycles,the critical pressure drop ratios through the orifice for the PDC achieving pressure gain and the engine achieving thrust gain are studied.More influencing factors are investigated by the use of a one-dimensional(1-D)numerical simulation model.The operating characteristics of the pulse detonation engine are investigated with changes of the valve type,the inlet/outlet area ratio of the PDC,the nozzle area ratio,and flight conditions.All these factors can affect pcbof the PDC,and pcbcan be optimized by changing the geometry of the engine.The most important influence parameter is the valve type.When using an orifice-type aerodynamic valve,simulation results show that the PDC cannot achieve the pressure gain characteristics.When a supersonic internal compression inlet is introduced to the engine,whether the Pulse Detonation Engine(PDE)can achieve thrust gain comparable with that of an ideal Brayton cycle engine not only is related to the pressure gain of the combustor,but also needs to optimize the engine structure to reduce the total pressure loss.

Design and testing of micro fluidic chemical analysis chip integrated with micro valveless pump

A new structure and working principle of the chip integrated with micro valveless pump for capillary electrophoresis was proposed in this paper. The micro valveless pump with plane structure has advantages of simple structure, and the process technology is compatible with existing micro chips for capillary electrophoresis. Based upon the mathematical model, simulation study of micro pump was carried out to investigate the influence of structural parameters on flow characteristics, and the performance of the integrated micro pump was also tested with different control parameters. The simulation results agree with the experimental results. Three samples, which are amino acid, fluorescein and buffer solution, have been examined with this chip. The results of the primary experiments showed that the micro valveless pump was promising in the integration and automatization of miniature integrated fluidic systems.

Valveless Thermally-Driven Phase-Change Micropump

A dynamic model with moving heat sources was developed to analyze the pumping mechanism of a valveless thermally-driven phase-change micropump. The coupled equations were solved to determine the pumping characteristics. The numerical results agree with experimental data from micropumps with different diameter microtubes. The maximum flow rate reached 33 μL / min and the maximum pump pressure was over 20 kPa for a 200-μm diameter microtube. Analysis of the pumping mechanism shows that the main factors affecting the flow come from the large density difference between the liquid and vapor phases and the choking effect of the vapor region.

Three-dimensional flow field simulation of steady flow in the serrated diffusers and nozzles of valveless micro-pumps

This paper presents a three-dimensional flow field simulation of the steady flows through diffusers and nozzles with straight or serrated-sided walls to analyze the effect of the channel structure on the flow characteristics.The pressure and velocity profiles in the diffusers and the nozzles as well as the net volumetric flow rate are determined.Our simulation demonstrates that the pressure and velocity profiles in the serrated diffuser/nozzles are more complicated than those with the straight-sided wall,while the net steady flow rate with the straight-sided wall increases monotonically with the increase of the pressure difference,the steady flow rate with serrated sided walls increases gradually to reach a maximum and then decreases with the increase of the pressure difference.The results suggest that the number of the sawteeth plays a significant role in optimizing the design of serrated diffusers and nozzles for improving the transport efficiency of valveless micro-pumps.

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.

Theory and experimental verification of valveless piezoelectric pump with rotatable unsymmetrical slopes

A valveless piezoelectric pump with rotatable unsymmetrical slopes is developed in this research.It has the following features:The pump integrates driving and transporting,and it can mix different fluids while transporting them.In this paper,firstly,the design of the valveless piezoelectric pump with rotatable unsymmetrical slopes was proposed,and the single-direction flow principle was explained.Then,the fluid mechanics model of the valveless piezoelectric pump with rotatable unsymmetrical slopes was established.Meanwhile,the numerical simulation of the pump was performed.Finally,the experiments on relationship between the rotation angles of the slope and the flow rates were conducted.The experimental results showed that the maximum flow was 32.32 mL min 1.The maximum relative error between the theoretical results and the experimental ones was 14.59%.For the relationship between rotation angles and flow ratio of two inlets,the relative error between the experimental and theoretical maxima was 3.75%.Thus,the experiments proved the feasibility of the pump design and verified the theory.

A spiral-tube-type valveless piezoelectric pump with gyroscopic effect

The valveless piezoelectric pump integrates driving and transmitting into one operating element,and characterizes easy micro-miniaturization.But,there is the original sin of low pressure and low flow.Thus,it must avoid weakness to choose applications field.This paper analyzes the flow characteristics in the rotary spiral-tube,which will cause the Coriolis force,and subsequently influence the fluid moving.The principle of the pump is deduced,and the spiral-tube-type valveless piezoelectric pump is invented.The angular velocity variation can be obtained when the pump attitude changes,which theoretically verifies the gyroscopic effect of the pump.A pump is fabricated for experimental testing.Experiments has shown that when Archimedes spiral h?4p is selected for the tube design,and the rotation speed of the plate is 70 r/min,the pressure differential is 9 mm H2O,which is 1.5 times that of 0 r/min rotation speed.If introduced the low-cost and miniaturized gyroscope,then this may promise potential application in these areas such as smart cars,robots,and home health care.

半圆柱阻流体锥形腔无阀压电泵

为了提高半圆柱阻流体无阀压电泵的流量,结合锥形腔的流阻不等特性,该文设计了一种半圆柱阻流体锥形腔无阀压电泵,并建立了其流量的理论公式。数值模拟了该泵的泵腔流速分布,对比分析了其与半圆柱阻流体无阀压电泵的阻力特性。模拟结果表明,半圆柱阻流体锥形腔无阀压电泵能实现流体的单向输送,且其输送能力优于半圆柱阻流体无阀压电泵。制作了两种泵的样机并进行了流量和压力差试验。试验结果表明,在驱动电压220 V下,半圆柱阻流体锥形腔无阀压电泵的最高流量和压力差分别为30.96 g/min和394 Pa,与半圆柱阻流体无阀压电泵相比,其流量和压力差均得到提高。