An Experimental Investigation of the Performance of an Acoustic Pump Employing Dynamic Passive Valves

An experimental study is conducted to investigate the performance of a non-uniform area resonator-based acoustic pump for air. Higher peak pressure amplitudes can be obtained by employing a non-uniform resonator. The pressure obtained has an oscillatory nature about the ambient pressure, with the frequency of operation equal to 933 Hz. The extraction of useful energy from the resonator is achieved by no-moving-part valves. In the present study, four different configurations of no-moving-part valves have been used for rectification. A series combination of three 15 mm length flow individual diode elements showed expected results with the diode having smaller diameter exhibiting better rectification. However, single diodes with length of 45 mm exhibited rectification in the opposite direction. The performance of the acoustic pump is evaluated based on its tank filling characteristics for a given driving power and a particular valve configuration. Maximum tank pressures of the order of 1000 Pa are obtained at maximum flow rates of the order of 10 slpm for the available range of driving powers.