Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Resonance Characteristics of Novel Pumping Element Driven by Two Piezoelectric Bimorphs

Abstract

This paper describes the vibration characteristics of a dual-bimorph piezoelectric pumping element under fluid–structure coupling. Unlike the single bimorph used in most previous studies, the proposed device comprises two piezoelectric bimorphs within an acrylic housing. Amplitude-fluctuation electronic speckle pattern interferometry (AF-ESPI) was used to examine the visible displacement fringes in order to elucidate the anti-phase as well as in-phase motions associated with vibration. Analysis was also conducted using impedance analysis and laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) based on the measurement of point-wise displacement. The experimental results of resonant frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes are in good agreement with those obtained using finite element analysis. The gain of flow rate obtained by the anti-phase motion of the dual-bimorph pumping element is larger than both those obtained by in-phase motion and the single bimorph pumping element. This work greatly enhances our understanding of the vibration characteristics of piezoelectric pumping elements with two bimorphs, and provides a valuable reference for the further development of bionic pump designs.