A rapid prototyped thermal mass flowmeter

Pečar, Borut (author), Vrtačnik, Danilo (author), Pavlin, Matic (author), Možek, Matej (author)

An innovative rapid prototyping technique for embedding microcomponents in PDMS replicas was developed and applied on a thermal mass flowmeter for closed loop micropump flowrate control. Crucial flowmeter design and thermal parameters were investigated with a 3-D fully coupled electro-thermal-fluidic model which was built in Comsol Multiphysics 5.2. The flowmeter was characterized for three distinct measuring configurations. For precise low flowrate applications, a sensor-heater-sensor flowmeter configuration with a constant heater temperature was found to be the most appropriate yielding the measuring range of 0 to 90 µL·min$^{−1}$ and the sensitivity of 1.3 °C·µL$^{−1}$·min in the lower flowrate range of 0 to 40 µL·min$^{−1}$.

• Language: English
• Keywords: thermal mass flowmeter, rapid prototyping, COMSOL, numerical simulation, calorimetric, hot wire
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 20 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 21, iss. 16, art. 5373
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-135980
• UDC: 681.121.7:621.38
• ISSN on article: 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s21165373
• COBISS.SI-ID: 73889283
• Publication date in RUL: 05.04.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sensors
• Shortened title: Sensors
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1424-8220
• COBISS.SI-ID: 10176278

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 09.08.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: termični masni merilnik pretoka, hitro prototipiranje, COMSOL, numerične simulacije, kalorimetrični princip, princip vroče žice

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P2-0244
• Name: Mikrostrukture in nanostrukture