Research on Transport and Mixing Dynamics of Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Airfoil Baffles

To reduce the complexity of mixing systems and improve mixing efficiency， this paper proposes a valveless piezoelectric pump integrated with airfoil baffles， which embodies both active and passive mixing attributes. The airfoil baffles are designed using the asymmetric NACA63-412 profile. The impact of the airfoil angle of attack on the flow field within the tube and the output and mixing performance of the piezoelectric pump is investigated. Computational simulations of the tube with airfoil baffle indicated that as the angle of attack increases， the position of vortex generation at the leading and trailing edge regions of the airfoil baffle progressively moves forward in the direction of fluid flow. Then the vortex volume enlarges， and the vortex intensity within the flow field rises. Subsequently， the prototypes of valveless piezoelectric pumps at four different angles of attack are fabricated and their output performances are experimentally evaluated. The results demonstrate that the maximum output flow rate of the pump decreases with an increasing angle of attack. At an angle of attack of 0°， the maximum output flow rate of the pump reaches 225.3 ml/min. Mixing performance experiments are conducted using the piezoelectric pump for the synthesis of Fe3O4 particles. The findings indicate that as the angle of attack increases， the number of Fe3O4 particles formed in the mixture significantly rises， with a narrower particle size distribution and more regular morphology. At an angle of attack of 15°， the synthesized Fe3O4 particles have an approximate diameter of 10 μm. The outcomes of this paper offer valuable insights for the design of microfluidic systems， catering to the demands of material synthesis， chemistry， and biomedical applications.