Investigation of a line-focused acoustic levitation for contactless transport of particles

We investigate herein an interesting acoustic line-focused levitation mechanism, enabling the simultaneous transportation of the acoustically levitated particles. It is shown that the performance of such a system is strongly dependent on the envelope of geometric parameters of the levitator. To study this dependence systematically, a thorough numerical model using the finite element method is developed. Both rigid and flexural radiating plates are considered. The effect of all important geometric parameters on the resulting acoustic potential patterns is investigated. After successful experimental validation, in which particles of density ca. 1000 times higher than that of their surrounding gas (∼1 g/cm3 versus ∼10−3 g/cm3) are levitated and translated, the model proves to be reliable in predicting the position as well as the force exerted on the levitated particles.