3D design and numerical simulation of a check-valve micropump for lab-on-a-chip applications

In this paper, we concentrated on designing and simulation of check-valve micropump for on-chip applications. A series of simulations were carried out by using 3D two-way fully-coupled fluid structure interaction analysis in combination with Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method to understand pumping chamber and inlet/outlet micro check-valves. After extraction of characteristic equations of each component, micropump main equation is solved to find time-domain pumping chamber pressure. Then, Effects of actuation amplitude and frequency on micropump’s flow rate were studied for different chamber sizes from 2 mm to 4 mm. In addition, the effect of backpressure on micropumps’ flow rate was evaluated. Using this method of simulation helps the researchers to estimate performance of micropump before initiating fabrication process.