Viscous micropump simulation by particle/continuum methods

A novel viscous micropump consisting of a cylindrical rotor eccentrically placed inside a microchannel is simulated by the two Volume-CAD (V-CAD) framework-based flow solvers, i.e., the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) package (named as V-DSMC) and the Navier-Stoke solver (named as V-Flow). V-DSMC is used in the case of the pump applied to gas, while V-Flow is applied to model the pump in the case of liquid working medium. The pumping performance curves under different liquid media with the variation of Reynolds number, as well as under different eccentricity factors are obtained. The performance and the flow filed characteristics are very sensitive to the tangential momentum accommodation coefficient in the case of gas medium. Three recirculations exist in the flow field, and the sizes of recirculation are different at the different operating points in a performance curve. © Shanghai Jiaotong University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.