Viability study of oscillatory flow pumps using bimorph piezoelectric actuators

摘要

Precision flow pumps have been widely studied over the last three decades. They have been applied in the areas of Biology, Pharmacy and Medicine in applications usually related to the dosage of medicine and chemical reagents. In addition, thermal management solutions for electronic devices have also been recently developed using these kinds of pumps offering better performance with low noise and low power consumption. In a previous work, the working principle of a pump based on the use of a bimorph piezoelectric actuator inserted in a fluid channel to generate flow was presented. In this work, a novel configuration of this piezoelectric flow pump that consists of a flow pump using two bimorph piezoelectric actuators in parallel configuration has been studied and it is presented. This configuration was inspired on fish swimming modes. The complete cycle of pump development was conducted, consisting in designing, manufacturing, and experimental characterization steps. Load-loss and flow rate characterization experimental tests were conducted, generating data that allows us to analyze the influence of geometric parameters in the pump performance. Comparisons among numerical and experimental results were made to validate the computational results and improve the accuracy of the implemented models.