A Novel PZT Pump with Built-in Compliant Structures

Different to the traditionally defined valved piezoelectric (PZT) pump and valveless PZT pump, two groups of PZT pumps with built-in compliant structures—with distances between the free ends of 0.2 mm (Group A) and 0 mm (Group B)—were designed, fabricated, and experimentally tested. This type of pump mainly contains a chamber 12 mm in diameter and 1.1 mm in height, a PZT vibrator, and two pairs of compliant structures arranged on the flowing channel. The flow-resistance differences between these two groups of PZT pumps were theoretically and experimentally verified. The relationships between the amplitude, applied voltage and frequency of the PZT vibrators were obtained experimentally, with results illustrating that the amplitude linearly and positively correlates with the voltage, while nonlinearly and negatively correlating to the frequency. The flow rate performance of these two groups was experimentally tested from 110–160 Vpp and 10–130 Hz. Results showed that the flow rate positively correlates to the voltage, and the optimum flow rate frequency centers around 90 Hz for Group A and 80 Hz for Group B, respectively. The flow rate performances of Group B were further measured from 60–100 Hz and 170–210 Vpp, and obtained optimal flow rates of 3.6 mL/min at 210 Vpp and 80 Hz when ignoring the siphon-caused backward flow rate. As the compliant structures are not prominently limited by the channel’s size, and the pump can be minimized by Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) processing methods, it is a suitable candidate for microfluidic applications like closed-loop cooling systems and drug delivery systems.