Electro-fluid-structural interaction simulation of a valveless micropump

In this paper, the pumping performance of a piezoelectric micropump is simulated with the commercial finite element analysis software COMSOL Multiphysics 3.2a. The micropump, which was developed in our previous work, is composed of a four-layer lightweight piezocomposite actuator, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pump chamber, and two diffusers. The piezoelectric domain, the structural domain and the fluid domain are coupled in the simulation. The water flow rates are numerically predicted for geometric parameters of the micropump. This study confirms that the micropump is optimally designed to obtain its maximum pumping performance.