Study on Electrical Performance of a U-Type Microfluidic Acceleration Switch Using Salt Solution as the Sensitive Electrode

The threshold of microfluidic inertial switch is excessively dependent on the size of the passive valve structure and the gas–liquid surface energy of working liquid. How to achieve high threshold and anti-high overload using liquid with low viscosity and low surface tension is a challenging work. Based on the designed U-type microfluidic inertial switch, the electrical characteristic of salt solution at microscale as well as the threshold and dynamic electrical performance of switch were studied. The VOF and CSD modules in CFD software were employed to analyze the dynamic flow process, and then the air–liquid surface moving displacement curve was compared by the theoretical model. A self-designed acceleration test platform was utilized to measure the static threshold, dynamic threshold, and anti-high overload of the inertial switch. The results show that the U-type microfluidics inertial switch using salt solution as sensitive electrode has better performance in power connection and anti-high overload. In particular, it also has the ability to achieve a range of dynamic threshold by changing the placement of the contact electrode, which can achieve rapid power on and off.