Development of a high performance peristaltic micropump

In this study, a high performance peristaltic micropump has been developed and investigated. The micropump has three cylinder chambers which are connected through microchannels and two normally closing active membrane valves at inlet/outlet for high pumping pressure performance. A circular shaped miniature LIPCA has been developed and manufactured for actuating diaphragms. In this LIPCA, a 0.1 mm thickness PZT ceramic is used as an active layer. As a result, the actuator has shown to produce large out-of-plane deflection and consumed low power. During the design process, a coupled field analysis was conducted to predict the actuating behavior of a diaphragm. The actuator behavior was investigated both theoretically and experimentally. In addition, MEMS technique was used to fabricate the peristaltic micropump. Judging from experimental flow rate and pumping pressure results, the present peristaltic micropump has higher performance than the same kind of micropump developed elsewhere.