A powder transport system based on piezoelectric ceramic stack actuators

A novel actuator-driven powder transport system is proposed in this paper. It has two sets of piezoelectric ceramic stacks whose vibrations couple together and make the powder transport pipe do elliptical vibration. The powder on the pipe wall can be thrown up, leading to the relative motions between the powder and pipe wall and thus the powder is transported. To get higher transport efficiency and speed, a displacement amplifier is adopted. The movement of the whole system is analyzed and discussed in theory and the mathematic model is established. The relationship between the input voltage and the output speed is obtained by means of simulation analysis. Theory foundation is provided for further study and practical application.