A collapsing bubble-induced micro-pump using the jetting effect

A new pumping principle is presented in this paper. It uses the fact that a high-speed jet can develop towards a nearby rigid plate when a bubble oscillates and then collapses. If a small hole is made in the plate at the vicinity of the jet impact, a pumping device can be created with a very high impulse. A prime advantage of this pump is that there are no moving parts and minimum back flow. Possible application areas are: micro-pumps in bio-medical applications, micro-electrical-mechanical devices (MEMS) or even inkjet printers. The response time of the pump is very fast (milliseconds and below). Some numerical results will be presented which clearly depict the principle of the proposed pumping device. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.