Etude numérique de microdiodes de type convergent/divergent

Numerical study of convergent/divergent microdiodes

¹ Technical University of Budapest - Department of Aircraft and Ships
² Laboratoire de Génie Mécanique de Toulouse - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse

Abstract

Fluidic microdiodes are devices with no mobile parts, which can be used to replace check valves in micropumps in order to increase their reliability. In this paper, the influence of the divergence angle on the efficiency of convergent/divergent diodes with constant depth is studied. Our numerical model built up with the CFD code Fluent is first validated thanks to experimental results available in the literature. The numerical study shows then that the preferential direction of the flow in the diode is dependant both on the divergence angle and on the pressure drop imposed through the device. The same parametrical study is done on convergent/divergent pyramid-shaped diodes. Behaviour differences are outlined and conclusions about the optimisation of such microdiodes used in micropumps are deducted from these results.