Valveless Small Gas Pump

Abstract

In this article, a small valveless gas pump based on a synthetic jet actuator is developed. Instead of a check or active valve, a special flow control structure in consideration of synthetic jet characteristics is designed to realize valve function. A small-sized prototype of this pump is presented. Numerical simulation by using a simplified fluid model is conducted. The results reveal that the present small valveless pump can achieve gas pumping with large flow rate. However, it is also noted that in one operation cycle, there exists a period when a small amount of backflow appears.

This paper was presented at the Micro/Nanoscale Energy Conversion Transport 2004; August 9–12 at Inje University, Korea.

Keywords:

• valveless gas pump
• synthetic jet actuator
• numerical simulation

Notes

This paper was presented at the Micro/Nanoscale Energy Conversion Transport 2004; August 9–12 at Inje University, Korea.