DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF VALVELESS MICROPUMPS BY USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS APPROACH

Abstract

This paper presents a design optimization of valveless micropump using Genetic Algorithms (GA). The micropump is designed with a diaphragm, pumping chamber and diffuser/nozzle element functions as inlet and outlet of micropump with outer dimension of (5×1.75×5) mm3. The main objectives of this research are to determine the optimum pressure to be applied at micropump’s diaphragm and to find the optimum coupling parameters of the micropump to achieve high flow rate with low power consumption. In order to determine the micropump design performance, the total deformation, strain energy density, equivalent stress for diaphragm, velocity and net flow rate of micropump are investigated. An optimal resonant frequency range for the diaphragm of valveless micropump is obtained through the result assessment. With the development of GA-ANSYS model, a maximum total displacement of diaphragm, 5.3635 µm, with 12 kPa actuation pressure and optimum net flowrate of 7.467 mL/min are achieved.

Keywords

• Valveless micropumps
• Optimization
• Genetic algorithms (GA)
• Fitness functions