A new piezoelectric laminated cantilever resonance based hydraulic pump

Abstract

A novel and compact model of resonance based hydraulic pump actuated by piezoelectric laminated cantilever beam is presented. This proposed pump comprises of simple elements such as a tube and a Non-Return Valve (NRV) as a down-hole component connected to a length of the tubing, and a piezoelectric actuator. The operating principle is based on the inertia of water column within the riser tubing. The water is drawn from the container through NRV and it increases the liquid column head in the tubing by rapid up and down movements. The piezoelectric actuator produces this movement by vibrating the cantilever beam in resonant frequency with the tube mounted on its tip. The closed loop electronic circuit is connected to maintain the vibration at resonant frequency, so that the pump can discharge the water at regular intervals of time. This simple pumping mechanism and the advantages of piezoelectric actuator such as lower noise generation and ease of miniaturization make this pump suitable for some important applications in biomedical engineering and electronics cooling systems in military applications. The characteristics of the proposed pump are measured and verified with simulated results.