Finite Element Analysis Assisted Improvement of Ionic Polymer Metal Composite Efficiency for Micropump of ۳D Bioprinter

Nowadays, smart materials for manufacturing bioprinters have diverse usages; micropump is one other product resulted by using smart materials such as IPMC, piezo, and etc., in manufacturing above mentioned printers. This item has an important role in micro systems and delivering special fluid such as nanofluids. In order to manufacture this type of pump a wide range of materials can be used. In this research, a smart material named ionic-polymer-metal composite (IPMC) is used; however, the current material for them is piezoelectrics. IPMC systems are mostly used in micro pump diagrams because of their self-assessment feature, low starting voltage, and elastic structure. In order to increase the IPMC actuator’s durability and also enlarging the deformation range, a new design for IPMC diaphragms is introduced in this paper. In prevalent designs, all the actuator edges where clamped, but here different IPMC actuators in circular and triangular shapes are presented. And also the new design allows the solvent to completely cover the diaphragm by separating the fluid from IPMC. IPMC strain and stresses are modeled in order to analyze the efficiency of the new design. The results show that the presented designed IPMC works steadily for a longer duration of time. It also has a wider deformation range and more efficiency compared to the conventional design.

Keywords:

Bioprinter , Micropump , IPMC , Piezoelectric , Finite element analysis