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The design and fabrication of hydraulic microcomponents obtained by stereolithography are proposed in this paper. A piezoelectric micropump and microchannels have been fabricated and tested extensively. The pump body and the microchannels are made out of ultraviolet-photocurable polymer material and manufactured by a single stereolithographic process. Stereolithography has been selected since it allows the microfabrication of three-dimensional structures of any complex shape, even incorporating 'integral' movable parts that may require no assembly. The design of the pump body and the flow channels has been based on optimum hydraulic criteria, and aimed to obtain long life and quick, cheap and easy manufacturing. Design rules have been studied in order to obtain hydraulic components with specific behaviours (flow rate, head, loss and charge). The paper describes the finite-element analysis of the thin plate pumping element and of the actuator, as well as the fabrication and experimental performance of the pump. Experimental results show good agreement with theoretical prediction obtained by simulation, and values of flow rate and discharge head that are among the highest reported in the literature for pumps for similar size and working principles.
Carrozza et al. (Thu,) studied this question.