3D-printed piezoelectric micropump with ball valves
X. WANG (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
M.K. Ghatkesar – Mentor (TU Delft - Micro and Nano Engineering)
T. Manzaneque Garcia – Mentor (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
V. Ruiz Diez – Mentor (University of Castilla-La Mancha)
Z. Wang – Mentor (TU Delft - Micro and Nano Engineering)
Vasiliki Giagka – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Bio-Electronics)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Micropumps are essential for providing controlled fluid dynamics in Organ-on-a-Chip (OoC) devices. Additive manufacturing builds up prototypes in several hours with a free-geometry advantage. Therefore, this master's thesis investigates the utilization of additive manufacturing to produce a micropump with a flowrate in the range of several $\mu l/min$ for OoC applications. A ball valve-based piezoelectric micropump was fabricated with a mSLA 3D printer. This micropump generates unidirectional flow through the reciprocating motion of the piezoelectric actuator and the movement of a ball within the conical channel. The virtual mass due to the inertia of the fluid inside the chamber shifts the resonance frequency of the piezoelectric actuator from the 1600 Hz to 43 Hz. The maximum flow rate of $26.5 \mu l/min$ was generated when the applied sinusoidal voltage was 240 Vpp at 5Hz and the maximum back pressure of 36.5 mbar was obtained under this power supply. These results confirm that additive manufacturing provides a promising option for miniature pump manufacturing.