Numerical design and performance of a valveless micropump

This paper presents design and numerically study performance of a valveless micropump. The micropump consists of two inlet channels, a pump chamber, and an outlet channel. These components are connected through a specific throat on one planar layer. A side of the pump chamber is enclosed by a vibrating plate which deforms volume of the pump chamber with time, therefore excites fluid from the inlet to the outlet. The plate was supposed to be made of PDMS which ensures a large deformation. The obtained results show that the flow rate of the pump increases linearly with increasing amplitude of the vibrating plate. With the exiting frequency of 50 Hz and deflection of 40 mum, the flow rate attains 4.25 mL/min and pump pressure is 1 kPa for the pump chamber diameter of 7 mm. Since there are two inlets, mixing feature of the pump is considered. It shows that the pump can work as an efficient micromixer.