Micro pumps are essential components of micro devices such as drug delivery systems. Large numbers of pumps have been proposed based on different actuating principles. Piezoelectric actuation offers advantages such as reliability and energy efficiency. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) based piezoelectric actuation for micro pumps is predominantly explored despite its disadvantages such as brittle nature, low straining and difficulties in processing. Polymer piezoelectric materials like polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) could be promising replacements for PZT owing to their availability in form of films and good strain coefficients. Very limited literature on micro pump with PVDF as an actuator is available. In this paper, finite element analysis (FEA) model of a micro pump actuator using single and multilayer PVDF for actuation is developed in ANSYS Ò . The model takes into account the influence of driving voltage and actuator geometry. The central deflection of the pump diaphragm which is instrumental in defining the pump performance is studied for driving voltages of 100-200 V. The deflection of the pump diaphragm for single layer and multilayer actuation are determined from the model. It could be inferred from the initial part of the study that pump performance depends on driving voltage and actuator film thickness. In order to reduce driving voltage requirement multilayer stacked actuator is tried with four different configurations of the layers. It is concluded that stacking configuration of parallel energized straight polarity PVDF layers yielded best central deflection. An attempt is made to compare the performance of multilayer actuator with an equivalent single thick layer actuator. It is noticed that the multilayer actuator performance was better by about 101% when number of layers is doubled.
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