Three-Dimensional Theoretical Study on Flow Characteristics of a Spiral-Channel Viscous Micropump

Abstract

Technological developments have led to micropumps playing an ever-greater role at the heart of micro total analysis systems. Spiral-channel viscous micropumps have been studied theoretically, numerically, and experimentally. However, high-accuracy performance predictions have not been achieved over a wide range of operating conditions. The present study proposes three-dimensional and quasi-three-dimensional theoretical expressions for predicting the pressure performance of spiral-channel viscous micropumps in low-Reynolds-number environments. The theoretical analysis is validated through a series of comparisons with numerical simulation results for the pressure performance curves, velocity distributions, velocity gradient distributions, and channel internal pressure distributions. Furthermore, the influence of the channel aspect ratio on the performance characteristics is investigated.