Open AccessA Rapid Prototyped Thermal Mass Flowmeter
Author(s) -
Borut Pečar,
D. Vrtačnik,
Matic Pavlin,
M. Možek
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
sensors
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.636
H-Index - 172
ISSN - 1424-8220
DOI - 10.3390/s21165373
Subject(s) - micropump , flow measurement , volumetric flow rate , fluidics , multiphysics , sensitivity (control systems) , mass flow rate , thermal mass , thermal , materials science , microfluidics , mass flow , heating element , flow sensor , mechanical engineering , engineering , electronic engineering , electrical engineering , acoustics , mechanics , nanotechnology , physics , structural engineering , finite element method , meteorology
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 .