A Micropump Driven by Marangoni Effect

Abstract

A micropump driven by the thermocapillary convection is proposed. The purpose of this study is to examine the flow structure in liquid region and the effect of the geometry on the performance of the present micropump. There are two significant advantages in the thermocapillary-driven system. First, the surface forces become more dominant than the volume forces with decreasing scale. The present micropump driven by the surface forces shows an advantage in the micro scale over a diaphragm pump driven by the volume forces. Secondary, the thermocapillary driven system contains no movable parts; thus, it allows a very simple structure compared to the diaphragm one. In the present micropump system, a number of ribs are distributed along the flow circuit between a heater and a cooler. Since heat transfer from these ribs to the working liquid imposes temperature gradients along the gas-liquid interfaces, the flow from the hot to the cold side is induced by the Marangoni effect. Fundamental characteristics of the present micropump are studied on the basis of three-dimensional simulation conducted taking the gas, liquid and ribs into account. In this study, the flow structure corresponding to the temperature field was observed. The present calculation has revealed that the flow field exhibits a transition from steady flow to oscillatory flow when the Marangoni number exceeds a critical value of about 2,000-2,500. An experiment was also performed. The liquid flow driven by the present micropump system was confirmed through the experiment.