Experimental Study of the Effects of Fluid Physical Properties on Conduction Pump Performance

In the current paper, performance of a conduction pump with flush electrodes has been experimentally studied using two dielectrics (n-hexane and n-decane) as the working fluids. The study is conducted for different liquid film thicknesses, and effects of changing the magnitude of applied electrical voltage, and other different parameters such as fluid physical properties (ion mobility difference, density and viscosity) and working temperature of the liquids on the performance and efficiency of the pump are investigated. Results show that while higher ion mobility difference increases electrical power consumption of the pump, since it leads to higher flow velocity, significantly enhances flow rate and efficiency. Therefore, using liquids with higher ion mobility difference is more appropriate in the industrial applications due to the simultaneous enhancement of flow rate and efficiency. On the other hand, although increasing the applied voltage decreases the pump efficiency, it raises flow rate, which is an important pump characteristic and even more important than efficiency for conduction pumps. Furthermore, it is observed that increasing the liquids temperature enhances the pump efficiency due to the reduction of fluids density and viscosity.