Investigation of tuning-fork double piezoelectric fans with elastic base

Abstract

Existing double piezoelectric fans are usually driven by independent powers, and this is not economical. This study proposes tuning-fork double piezoelectric fans (TDPFs) with elastic base, which works in the anti-phase resonant mode. Two blades of the TDPFs can be excited to resonate simultaneously even with an asymmetric structure when driven by only single power. A prototype of TDPFs with elastic base is fabricated, analyzed, and tested. Results reveal that the TDPFs with elastic base exhibits a larger thermal dissipation capability than double piezoelectric fans with rigid base do when the two blades are identical at the same driving voltage. This finding is further verified through two-dimensional flow simulations in COMSOL. With the coupling of the elastic base, the TDPFs provides a higher energy-keeping capability when length deviations exist between the two blades. Results show that when driven by single power, the tolerance in length deviation of the TDPFs with elastic base could be 25 times larger than that of the double piezoelectric fans with no-coupling rigid base, with the same 20% decrease in thermal dissipation capability. Therefore, the proposed TDPFs with elastic base reduces the influence of fabrication errors or fixation discordance, and is more robust for practical applications.