Simulation and Experimental Studies on a Micro Diaphragm Air Pump Actuated by PZT

摘要

Micro gas pump is one of the important micro fluidic components, which can be used for gas analysis in chemical, airrnsupply of micro fuel cell and micro fluid cooling systems. Pumping gases requires a strong compression ratio inside thernpump chamber for gas could be compressed. This paper presents a micro diaphragm air pump actuated by PZTrnbimorphs, which characterizes thin structure, large air flow and low power consumption. The diaphragm air pump isrnmade up of a cavity and an actuating structure. The actuating structure consists of two PZT bimorphs and a diaphragmrnwith check valves, which could produce large volumetric change ratio. Then, a prototype of the pump whose cavity’srndimension is 60×16×2mm was fabricated by precise manufacture. The mathematical models were established andrnsimulation had been carried out, in which the parameters, such as flow rate, diaphragm’s vibrating amplitude andrnresonant frequency are calculated and analyzed. Furthermore, experiments on the pump were carried out. Thernexperimental data are basically agreement with the simulation results. With a voltage of 20V, the air pump’s flow isrn85.3ml/min in resonance and its power consumption is only 3.18mW. Simulations and experiments show that therndiaphragm air pump has high efficiency and good performance. It also shows good application prospects in air supplyrnfor micro fuel cell and micro electronic devices’ cooling.