We present here a novel microchamber sealing valve that is self-actuated by a pressure change during the temperature change in the thermal activation of reactions. Actuation of our valve requires only the use of the same heating device as employed for the reactions. A thermoplastic UV-curable polymer is used as a device material; the polymer allows realization of the temperature-driven valve ac...

As the control valve of the propulsion system engine, the electromagnetic valve play an important role in attitude and orbit control for spacecraft. While the leak of the electromagnetic valve has always been the main cause of the failure of the propulsion system. Due to the shell’s complex structure as well as many seam weld on it, the normal NDT is unfit to check out some small cracks and mic...

Medical microrobots have been widely used in clinical applications, particularly the spiral type locomotion mechanism, which was recently considered one of the main self-propelling mechanisms for the next medical microrobot to perform tasks such as capsule endoscopy and drug delivery. However, limits in clinical applications still exist. The spiral action of the microrobot while being used for ...

Introduction The art of supersonic beams has advanced since its early years [1–6], when simple cw sources were used. The main limitation on achieved beam intensity was set by the pumping capacity of the source chambermainly large diffusion pumps and Roots pumps (with capacities of 3.000-10.000 liter/second). It was realized that when the background pressure was too high in the source chamber, b...

This paper presents a novel dosing concept for drug delivery based on a peristaltic piezo-electrically actuated micro membrane pump. The design of the silicon micropump itself is straight-forward, using two piezoelectrically actuated membrane valves as inlet and outlet, and a pump chamber with a piezoelectrically actuated pump membrane in-between. To achieve a precise dosing, this micropump is ...

The control valve operates at high operation frequency (up to 1,000 Hz) in the large pressure differences between the inlet and outlet of the valve. The flow and operation characteristics of a high-speed electromagnetic control valve are investigated using a commercial software, CFD-ACE+. It is found that maximum operation frequency of the control valve depends on the applied electromagnetic fo...

Abstract The potential to actuate proportional flow control valves using piezoelectric ceramics or other smart materials has been investigated for a number of years. Although performance advantages compared to electromagnetic actuation have been demonstrated, a major obstacle has proven to be ferroelectric hysteresis, which is typically 20% for a piezoelectric actuator. In this paper, a detaile...