Design and simulation of a novel electrostatic peristaltic micromachined pump for drug delivery applications

A novel electrostatic micromachined pump for medical applications is designed and simulated. The proposed structure for the micropump consists of an input and an output port, three membranes, three active membrane valves, microchannels, and three electrostatic actuation systems. Pumping mechanism of the proposed micropump is based on the peristaltic motion that has some advantages, such as high controllability and precision, over the other mechanism that makes it suitable to be used for the medical applications. Electrostatic actuation has been employed for the deflection of the membranes because of its benefits, such as the smaller size of the device in comparison with the other types, especially piezoelectric counterpart and so on. Employing active membrane valves instead of passive check valves resolves some of the problems, such as valve clogging and leakage. The designed micropump satisfies all medical drug delivery requirements, such as drug compatibility, flow rate controllability, self-priming, small chip size, and low power consumption. The flow rate of the designed micropump is 9.1 μl/min which is quite suitable for drug delivery applications, such as chemotherapy. Total size of the designed micropump is 7 mm × 4 mm × 1 mm, which is smaller than the other peristaltic counterpart micropumps. Assuming zero residual stress, low actuation voltage, and small size are the main advantages of our design. The designed micropump is simulated by the finite element method, using the ANSYS 5.7 software.