Surface Micromachined Viscous Spiral Pump

摘要

One distinguishing feature of micro scale fluid flow is its low Reynolds number, which is attributed to the small characteristic dimension and dominant viscous effects. Motivated by the observation that low Reynolds pumping on the macro-scale is often achieved by viscous drag, a micro-scale viscous drag pump, which drags fluid along a spiral-shaped channel, is developed using surface micromachining. The paper presents the detailed design of the mechanical elements of the pump and an analysis of the flow field in its spiral channel.