Pump using Nematic Liquid Crystalline Flow under Application of Electric Field

This article is concerning a small pump for liquid crystal, which is called liquid crystal pump in this article. The mechanism of the induced flow of liquid crystal by application of electric fields on the liquid crystal is used to generate the rotational flow in the present pump. Liquid crystal pump has a channel to change rotational flow into one-way flow from inlet to outlet of the pump. Rotational electric fields are used in the present study. In our researches, a previous pump was cylindrical type with a long length in the axial direction. On the other hand, this article presents plate-type pumps with planar electrode, so it is short in the axial direction. The rotational electric fields are generated by circle-electrode structure fabricated on planar surface, which are applied three-phase alternating currents. Using integrated electrode plate, connection of pumps with plate type is easier than cylindrical one. The pressure–flow rate characteristics of the pump were measured. In addition, the relation between non-dimensional flow rate and pressure of the pump were obtained. In order to obtain a high pressure and high flow rate, various shapes of electrode and channel were investigated and the measured results were compared with each other. Besides connecting pumps with integrated circle electrode plate were designed to get the required pressure and flow rate. The structure of liquid crystal pump is simple and the size can be decreased by further researches. So this pump has the advantage of small source of actuator by changing electric power into fluid power. Furthermore, our pump has a good possibility of the cooling system’s source because this pump makes no noise and no mechanical vibration.