Theory and experimental verification on valveless piezoelectric pump with multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tubes

Abstract

Among most traditional piezo water cooling systems, piezoelectric valve pumps are adopted as their driving sources. The valves in these pumps induce problems of shock and vibration and also make their structure complicated, which is uneasy to minimize and reduce their reliability and applicability of the whole system. In order to avoid these problems caused by valve structure, a novel valveless piezoelectric pump is developed, which integrates both functions of transforming and cooling. The pump’s Y-shape tree-like construction not only increases the efficiency of cooling but also the system reliability and applicability. Firstly, a multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tube is proposed, then a valveless piezoelectric pump with multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tubes is designed and its working principle is analyzed. Then, the theoretical analysis of flow resistance characteristics and the flow rate of the valveless piezoelectric pump are performed. Meanwhile, commercial software CFX is employed to perform the numerical simulation for the pump. Finally, this valveless piezoelectric pump is fabricated, the relationship between the flow rates and driving frequency, as well as the relationship between the back pressure and the driving frequency are experimentally investigated. The experimental results show that the maximum flow rate is 35.6 mL/min under 100 V peak-to-peak voltage (10.3 Hz) power supply, and the maximum back pressure is 55 mm H2O under 100 V (9 Hz) power supply, which validates the feasibility of the valveless piezoelectric pump with multistage Y-shape treelike bifurcate tubes. The proposed research provides certain references for the design of valveless piezoelectric pump and improves the reliability of piezo water cooling systems.