Research on Inlet and Outlet Structure Optimization to Improve the Performance of Piezoelectric Pump

As piezoelectric pumps are used in more fields, they are gradually failing to meet the application requirements due to their low output performance. Therefore, improving the output performance of piezoelectric pumps helps to expand their applications. This paper argued that the dynamic load of liquid in the inlet and outlet pipelines was an important factor that weakened the performance of piezoelectric pumps. Therefore, in order to reduce the dynamic load, it was proposed to replace the conventional piezoelectric pump inlet and outlet by an elastic inlet and outlet. After introducing the structure and working principle of elastic inlet and outlet, the mechanism of reducing the dynamic load by elastic inlet and outlet was analyzed. Then, the influence of the elastic cavity height on the performance of the piezoelectric pump was studied from both fluid simulation and theoretical analysis. Finally, several prototypes were made. The effectiveness of the elastic inlet and outlet on improving the performance of the prototype and the effect of the elastic cavity height on the performance of the prototype were tested, respectively. The test results showed that the elastic inlet and outlet effectively improved the flow rate and output backpressure without increasing the maximum output backpressure. The maximum flow rate of the pump system without load was increased by 36%. In addition, the elastic cavity height adversely affected the flow rate and output backpressure of the prototypes, but had no effect on the maximum output backpressure. In summary, the elastic inlet and outlet can effectively increase the output performance of the piezoelectric pump, but the design height should be appropriately reduced.