Oscillatory Dielectric Liquid Flow Generated by EHD Micropump

An electrohydrodynamic (EHD) micropump to generate oscillating flow is newly developed and experimentally tested using an arrangement of thin stainless steel wires of diameter 0.3 mm. A working fluid is accelerated from the charged electrode to the ground electrode by a high electric field. The electric body force responsible for this acceleration is primarily the Coulomb force. To increase the electric filed at low applied voltage, the electrode gap between the charged and ground electrodes is reduced to 0.2 mm. The size of the present EHD pump is 24×30×7.8 mm³, in which ten pairs of electrodes are fabricated. In order to generate oscillating flows, the sinusoidal wave voltage and the rectangular wave voltage are applied. The present EHD pump is demonstrated to successfully generate oscillating flows at low frequencies (0.01 Hz ~ 5 Hz).