Research on the influence of piezoelectric vibration on the mixing mechanism of Tesla valve micromixers

This paper presents a micromixer that integrates a Tesla valve passive structure with piezoelectric active vibration excitation through a hybrid passive active configuration. Through numerical simulations and experimental studies, the mixing performance with and without piezoelectric actuation under different Reynolds numbers ( Re ) is systematically analyzed. The results indicate that the dual Tesla valve series structure exhibits good mixing capability even in passive mode, achieving an outlet mixing efficiency of 90.2% at Re = 0.1. Under the excitation condition selected from the maximum structural amplitude response, piezoelectric vibration significantly enhances the mixing efficiency, increasing it to 95.43%, 94.84%, and 93.77% at Re = 0.1, 1, and 10, respectively, with particularly substantial improvement observed at moderate to high Re . The results show that the hybrid passive–active configuration provides higher mixing efficiency than the passive Tesla valve structure operating alone, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed combined design. Moreover, the experimental results are highly consistent with the simulation results, demonstrating the reliability of the numerical model. This design features a simple structure, ease of integration, low energy consumption, and promising potential for engineering applications.