NAVIER-STOKES SIMULATION OF A VISCOUS MICRO PUMP WITH A SPIRAL CHANNEL

The Navier-Stokes equations are solved to study the flow characteristics of a micro viscous pump. The viscous micropump is consisted of a stationary disk with a spiral shaped channel and a rotating disk. A simple geometrical model for the tip clearance is proposed and validated by comparing computed flow rate with corresponding experimental data. Present numerical solutions show satisfactory agreement with the corresponding experimental data. The tip clearance effect is found to become significant as the rotational speed increases. As the pressure load increases, a reversed flow region is seen to form near the stationary disk. The height of the channel is shown to be optimized in terms of the flow rate for a given rotational speed and pressure load. The optimal height of the channel becomes small as the rotational speed decreases or the pressure load increases. The flow rate of the pump is found to be in proportion to the width of channel.