A Magnetic Coupling Pneumatic Diaphragm Pump Driven by Dielectric Elastomers

Typical Fluidic elastomer actuators use conventional rigid air-compression systems that restrict their application in wearable devices. In this study, we propose a soft diaphragm pump driven by circular dielectric elastomer (DE) as the active diaphragm coupled with magnetic attraction as nonlinear antagonistic mechanism to improve amplitude. By taking the principle of volume change in diaphragm chamber together with two check-valves on both sides, directional pumping is achieved. Despite the presence of damping in the passive valves, the flexible pump still exhibits a good output performance at the resonance of DE. Furthermore, by optimizing the distance between the magnets and increasing the applied electric field strength, the output performance of the flexible pump can reach a maximum output pressure of 28 mbar and a peak gas flow rate of 0.24 L/min at an applied electric field of 60 MV/m.