Sharif Digital Repository

A reciprocating single-chamber micropump is designed and experimentally tested. The actuation technique of the pump is based on Lorentz force acting on an array of low-weight microwires placed on a flexible membrane surface. A square-wave electric current (5.6 and 7.8 A) with a low-frequency range (5.6 to 7.6 Hz) is applied through the microwires in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field (0.08 to 0.09 T). The resultant oscillating Lorentz force causes the membrane to oscillate with the same frequency, and pushes the fluid to flow toward the outlet using a high-efficiency ball-valve. The micropump has exhibited a maximum efficiency of 2.03% with a flow rate as high as 490 μl/s and... 

Today, MEMS have wide applications in modern technologies. Magneto hydro dynamic (MHD) micropumps play an important role in the MEMS industry and have been thoroughly studied in the recent years. In this study, the idea of classic reciprocating micropumps was combined with magneto hydro dynamics (MHD) to develop a novel Magneto Mercury Reciprocating (MMR) micropump. To attain this goal, the Lorentz force, as the actuation mechanism, was used to move a conductive liquid (mercury) slug in a reciprocating manner in order to suck the working fluid (air) from the inlet and pump it to the outlet. The performance of the fabricated MMR micropump was examined in terms of parameters such as pressure... 

In the present study, the effect of the number of stages of Tesla Micro-Valve (TMV), as well as the dependency of Reynolds number, Re, on the valve performance has been analyzed. For this purpose, different layouts include one to four-stage with different sizes are investigated numerically. The main criterion for evaluation of valves performance is diodicity, Di. Unsteady and steady flow in valve have been simulated and compared. It is shown that although there are some difference but the trend is similar for both responses. Finally, 2-D and steady state computations of the fluid flow have been utilized that reveal a strong dependence of Di on Re and pressure drop, ΔP. The results showed... 

In this study, a novel prototype high-efficiency miniature pump that uses magnetic properties of a ferrofluid in both pumping and valving mechanisms is presented. The minichannel consisting of a cylindrical pumping chamber, a check valve, an inlet and an outlet, comprises six bonded layers of PMMA. A cylindrical permanent magnet that is placed inside the chamber and is externally actuated by a motorized off-center permanent magnet, functions as a revolving piston which sweeps the perimeter of the cylinder. Ferrofluid is used to cover the gaps between the magnetic piston and the channel walls, also serves as a separating plug between the inlet and the outlet of the chamber preventing... 

This paper presents the prototype design and fabrication of a magnetically actuated miniature pump that utilizes self-sealing capability of ferrofluid-covered permanent magnets in both pumping and valving mechanisms. The valving action is performed by employing one active valve along with two nozzle/diffuser elements. Two cylindrical permanent magnets are placed inside the flat-wall channels: One magnet acts as the active valve and the other one serves as a reciprocating piston actuating the working fluid. In order to seal the gaps between the channel walls and the permanent magnet of the valve/piston, ferrofluid is used to cover the surfaces of both magnets. The valve and the piston are... 

Micropumps are among useful equipment in microsystems. The magnetically actuated mercury micropump, which has been introduced for less than a decade, is an innovative kind of micropumps which uses mercury droplets motion as a pumping agent. The equations governing this micropump are complex and their numerical solution is a time-consuming process, due to electromagnetic, hydrodynamic, and unsteady effects. In the present study, for the first time, using simplifying assumptions, the performance of a Magneto Mercury Reciprocating (MMR) micropump with electromagnetic actuation is studied through electrical analogy and then, the components and operational stages of the micropump are simulated... 

A novel rotary magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) (RMHD) micropump is presented in this paper in order to both benefit exclusive advantages from the MHD micropumps and eliminate the current obstacles in their implementation. Lorentz force, which is the actuation mechanism in RMHD, is used to propel a mercury slug in a circular microchannel in order to suck the working fluid from the inlet and pump it to the outlet. This idea is integrated with a valve which prevents the working fluid from passing through, while allowing the mercury slug to pass, during each pumping loop. The performance of a fabricated RMHD is evaluated, considering parameters such as pressure difference, running duration, electric... 

Lorentz force is the pumping basis of many electromagnetic micropumps used in lab-on-a-chip. In this paper a novel reciprocating single-chamber micropump is proposed, in which the actuation technique is based on Lorentz force acting on an array of microwires attached on a membrane surface. An alternating current is applied through the microwires in the presence of a magnetic field. The resultant force causes the membrane to oscillate and pushes the fluid to flow through microchannel using a ball-valve. The pump chamber (3 mm depth) was fabricated on a Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) substrate using laser engraving technique. The chamber was covered by a 60 μm thick hyper-elastic latex rubber... 

The significant importance of micro-scaled devices in medicine, lab-on-a-chip, and etc resulted in a vast variety of researches. The idea behind the novel hydro magnetic micro-pump and flow controller is that ferromagnetic particles, mixed and dispersed in a carrier fluid, can be accumulated and retained at specific sites to form pistons in a micro-tube using some external magnetic field sources along the micro-tube. This external magnetic field is related to some solenoids, which are turned on and off alternatively. Depending upon dragging speed of these pistons, which itself is a function of switching time, this device can be used to either increase (pumping) or decrease (valving) the flow... 

Surface tension driven passive micro-pumping relies mainly on the surface tension properties. To have control over surface tension driven passive micro-pumps (STD-PMPs), it is essential to understand the physical background of the fluid flow in these pumps. Hence, the purpose of this work is to give an exploration of the flow physics of a STD-PMP. In this regard, computer simulation is used to give detailed information about the flow pattern and physical phenomena at different conditions. To this end, a droplet of water, with a specified diameter, is placed onto an entry port connected to another droplet at the exit port via a microchannel. The results indicate that the pumping process, in... 

Thermopneumatic micropump is one type of positive displacement micropump, which has many applications due to its relatively large stroke volume, low working voltage, and simple fabrication in microscale. In this paper, a numerical study of heat transfer and fluid flow in a valveless thermopneumatically driven micropump is presented. For rectifying the bidirectional flow, a nozzle and a diffuser are used as the inlet and outlet channels of the chamber. Since the fluid flow is induced by the motion of a diaphragm, the numerical simulation includes fluid structure interaction, which requires applying a dynamic mesh. The domain of solution is divided into two sections; the actuator unit, which... 

In order to deal with the limitations of micro-pumps and micro-valves and meet the advantages of magnetic systems a novel plan is described here. The idea behind the plan is that magnetic particles, mixed and dispersed in a carrier liquid, can be accumulated and retained at specific sites to form pistons in a micro-tube using some external magnetic field sources along the tube. In other words, using some solenoids and switching them on and off, in a specific order and period, causes the desired external magnetic field variation through the tube. Changing the period and the mode of activation and deactivation of the solenoids, which are called switching time and switching mode, respectively,... 

Nowadays, the potential of phase change process in liquids at micro scale attracts the scientists to fabricate this type of micropumps. Such micropumps have widely found applications in industrial and medical equipments such as recent printers. Not using mechanical parts such as valves, and having small sizes and high and controllable mass flow rates are the advantages of these micropumps. In the nozzle diffuser phase change micropump a heat pulse generates a bubble in a chamber; therefore, the pressure pulse which is generated by the bubble, causes the bubble to expand suddenly with high rate, then the pressure of bubble reduces to the vapor pressure and causes negative rate of expansion to... 

In this paper, the fluid-structure interaction problem in mechanical systems in which a high frequency vibrating solid structure interacts with the surrounding fluid flow is considered. Such a situation normally appears in many microelectromechanical systems like a wide variety of microfluidic devices. A different implementation of the residual-based variational multiscale flow method is employed within the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation. The combination of the variational multiscale method with appropriate stabilization parameters is used to handle the so-called small time step instability in the finite element analysis of the fluid part in the coupled fluid-structure interaction... 

In this paper, the so-called small time-step instability in finite element simulation of the fluid part is considered in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems in which a high-frequency vibrating structure interacts with an incompressible fluid. Such a situation is common in many microfluid manipulating devices. A treatment has been proposed that uses the dimensionless set of FSI governing equations in order to scale up the problem time step to a proper level that precludes the potential small time-step instability. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element simulations of a mechanical micropumping device are performed to verify the efficiency of the presented approach. Solid... 

The novel idea of the Hydromagnetic Micropump and Flow Controller (HMFC) is used in this paper to construct a laboratory setup capable of bidirectional pumping and controlling the flow in microtubes. A laboratory setup, which contains no moving parts, is integrated with a pressure-driven flow setup to make the presented HMFC device. The device operation is based on controllable motion of magnetic particles, added to the carrier fluid, caused by the magnetic field, produced by solenoids located just next to the microtube. The magnitude of these forces is proportional to the strength and gradient of magnetic field which, in turn, is related to the electrical current and arrangement of the...