In order to improve the output capacity of a piezoelectric pump when transferring gas, this paper presents a compact resonant piezoelectric diaphragm pump (hereinafter referred to as the piezoelectric diaphragm pump), which is driven by a rectangular piezoelectric vibrator. The compact structure can effectively release the vibrating constraints of the vibrator, and enlarge its center output displacement, so as to increase the volume change rate of the pump chamber. Based on the structure and the working principle of this piezoelectric diaphragm pump, a dynamic model for the diaphragm system is established in this paper, and an analysis on factors affecting the resonant frequency of the system is then conducted. We tested on the prototype under the driving voltage of 260 Vpp. The results show that the diaphragm system reaches resonance under the driving frequency of 265 Hz, which is very close to the fundamental frequency of check valve. Compared with the rectangular piezoelectric vibrator’s amplitude, the diaphragm’s amplitude is double amplified. At this time, the piezoelectric diaphragm pump achieves the maximum gas flow rate as 186.8 mL/min and the maximum output pressure as 56.7 kPa.

To improve the stability and reliability of the piezoelectric micro-pump, the cause of air block phenomenon is analyzed on the structure of wheel check valve. During the movement of the bubble in the micro-channel, pressure drop occurs, the main factor which influences the bubble going through is opening height of the wheel check valve. Five groups of wheel check valves with different structures are used to test the wheel check valve opening height and air block probability. The experiment results show that reducing the wheel check valve thickness or diameter ratio can both increase the wheel check valve opening height, and decrease the air block probability. Through experiment, the optimum combination of the wheel check valve structure is obtained within the samples: as the thickness is 0.02 mm, the diameter ratio is 1.2, the wheel check valve opening height gets 252 µm, and within the given bubble volume, the air block probability is less than 2%.

To compensate for the insufficiency and instability of solder paste dispensing and printing that are used in the SMT (Surface Mount Technology) production process, a noncontact solder paste jetting system driven by a piezoelectric stack based on the principle of the nozzle-needle-system is introduced in this paper, in which a miniscule gap exists between the nozzle and needle during the jetting process. Here, the critical jet ejection velocity is discussed through theoretical analysis. The relations between ejection velocity and needle structure, needle velocity, and nozzle diameter were obtained by FLUENT software. Then, the prototype of the solder paste jetting system was fabricated, and the performance was verified by experiments. The effects of the gap between nozzle and needle, the driving voltage, and the nozzle diameter on the jetting performance and droplet diameter were obtained. Solder paste droplets 0.85 mm in diameter were produced when the gap between the nozzle and needle was adjusted to 10 μm, the driving voltage to 80 V, the nozzle diameter to 0.1 mm, and the variation of the droplet diameter was within ±3%.

A piezoelectric vibration feeder with a magnetic spring is discussed in this paper. The feeder can keep resonance frequency relatively stable under changing loading. Through the analysis on the working principle and magnetic spring stiffness characteristic of this feeder, the dynamic model was established and the relationship among system resonance frequency, loading and magnetic spring stiffness was obtained. The analysis showed that, as the loading changed, the magnetic spring stiffness changed accordingly, which maintained a trend of stability in the system resonance frequency. A prototype was made for the experiment, and the relationship among the loading, magnetic spring axial clearance and system resonance frequency was obtained. The result showed that, when the loading changes, the resonance frequency and feeding speed tended to be stable, which matched the theoretical analysis. Through comparison with a traditional vibration feeder, within nominal loading, this new feeder has more stable resonance frequency and feeding speed.

Piezoelectric actuation is widely used for the active vibration control of smart structural systems, and corresponding research has largely focused on linear electromechanical devices. This paper investigates the design and analysis of a novel piezoelectric actuator that uses a piezoelectric cantilever beam with a loading spring to produce displacement outputs. This device has a special nonlinear property relating to converting between kinetic energy and potential energy, and it can be used to increase the output displacement at a lower voltage. The system is analytically modeled with Lagrangian functional and Euler–Lagrange equations, numerically simulated with MATLAB, and experimentally realized to demonstrate its enhanced capabilities. The model is validated using an experimental device with several pretensions of the loading spring, therein representing three interesting cases: a linear system, a low natural frequency system with a pre-buckled beam, and a system with a buckled beam. The motivating hypothesis for the current work is that nonlinear phenomena could be exploited to improve the effectiveness of the piezoelectric actuator’s displacement output. The most practical configuration seems to be the pre-buckled case, in which the proposed system has a low natural frequency, a high tip displacement, and a stable balanced position.

In this paper, a small, simple and compact bidirectional linear piezoelectric stick-slip actuator (PSSA) capable of realizing high-speed drive at low frequencies is proposed. Based on the stick-slip driving principle and the lever-type displacement amplification mechanism using asymmetric inertial driving foot structure to drive the slider to generate motion, the output performance of the piezoelectric actuator is improved. In this work, the structural design and working principle of the actuator are described in detail, and the amplification ratio of the flexible amplification mechanism is calculated and the structural parameters are optimized through theoretical analysis and finite element simulation analysis. Finally, a prototype is fabricated and tested to characterize the output performance in terms of driving voltage, driving frequency, output speed and load capacity. The test results show that the maximum output speed of the actuator is 5.01mm/s, the maximum horizontal load and resolution are 70g and 125nm, respectively, in addition, the actuator has a better bidirectional driving performance, the forward and reverse motion accuracy is 80nm. The comparison of the performance of the actuator with the existing bidirectional actuator reflects the advantages of the proposed actuator in output performance.