Piezoelectric micropump for drug delivery application

Bending type actuators providing high displacement (∼1mm) with low blocking force (∼0.5N) and the stack actuators providing low displacement (∼1mum) with high blocking force (∼1kN) represent the extreme ends of the current piezoelectric actuation technology. In the intermediate range there is deficiency of the actuator designs that provide high displacement with high blocking force in low frequency range of ∼2 kHz. This thesis addresses this issue and describes a metal-ceramic actuator design that exhibits high displacement with high blocking force. The structure consist of a piezoelectric bar poled along the length and metal caps were attached to the two opposite major faces of the bar bounded by steel blocks. The piezoelectric bar is multilayered for operating at low driving voltages.; Extensive FEM analysis using ATILA was conducted to optimize the dimensions of the actuator. FEM results showed that the flextensional mode for actuator of dimension 7x7x40 mm3 occurs at low frequency of 2.175 kHz. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...