Measurement and Numerical Simulation of Ion Drag Pump Characteristics

Abstract

This paper deals with the measurement and numerical simulation of the characteristics of ion drag pumps. The pressure-flow rate characteristics and the flow fields of ion drag pumps with different configurations are measured and are numerically simulated. Measured and simulated results are compared with each other. The value of the ionic mobility and the relation between the electric field strength and the injected charge density are determined so that the numerical simulation results agree well with measured results for a certain standard configuration of ion drag pump. It is shown that the pump characteristics can be simulated with a relatively good accuracy by the numerical simulation and that an appropriate selection of the value of the ionic mobility is essential to the success in numerical simulation. It is also shown that the accuracy of the numerical simulations for the pumps with configurations different from the standard one is lowered when the relation between the electric field strength and the injected charge density for the standard pump is used.

Keywords

• electrohydrodynamics
• ion drag pump
• pump characteristic
• flow field
• piv
• numerical simulation