Simulation of A Bidirectional Microfluidic Pump Actuated by Ultrasound Based on Microcantilever Arrays

Abstract

In this work, we propose a novel design of a microfluidic pump that can pump flow bidirectionally by changing the frequency of the external remote ultrasound. Finite element analysis (FEA) is used to analyze the feasibility of our design. The bidirectional microfluidic pumping fundamentally relies on the utilization of microcantilevers with different dimensions for achieving distinct resonance frequencies. In this way, ultrasound with different frequencies can be used to induce bidirectional acoustic streaming flow in the microchannel by selective actuation of two microcantilever arrays. The simulation presented in this work shows that the direction of pumping flow can be changed by changing the frequency of the ultrasound, which lays a strong foundation for us to develop an fully implantable bidirectional micropump for applications such as implantable drug delivery and biopsy.