In this paper a piezoelectrically driven silicon membrane pump with passive dynamic valves is described. It is designed to pump gases and liquids and to be tolerant to gas bubbles. Reducing the dead volume within the pump, and thus increasing the compression ratio, one achieves the gas pumping. The main advantages and novel features of the pump described in the paper are the self-aligning of the membrane unit to the valve unit and the possibility of using screen-printed PZT as actuator, which enables mass production and thus low-cost micropumps. A liquid pump rate of 1500 μl min−1 and a gas pump rate of 690 μl min−1 were achieved.

Owing to the determinant effects of the local distribution of solids concentration on transport phenomena, particularly in gas‐solids flows in such processing units as gas‐solid fluidized beds and pneumatic conveying lines, its accurate measurement has received considerable attention. Despite the widespread applications of optical fibre probes for the measurement of local solids concentration, these instruments may create measurement uncertainties due to their structural designs and challenges in their accurate calibrations. Several calibration methods have been proposed in the literature, while they need to be further improved. In the present study, we calibrated in‐house, fabricated, solids concentration mixed parallel optical fibre probes by two sets of solids‐polymer blocks covering solids volume fractions in the range of 0‐0.30. The uniform blocks were produced by a twin‐screw extruder and an injection moulding machine. FCC particles, 86 μm in diameter, formed the dispersed solids in the blocks, while poly styrene and poly methyl methacrylate were separately acting as the transparent medium. They helped us investigate the effects of the refractive index of the medium and the probe tip design on the calibration curve. The blind distance (zone) in front of the adopted probes was determined, at about 0.70 mm, upon measuring their reflective curves. Two glass windows with 1.00 and 1.60 mm thicknesses were separately installed at the tip of a probe to study their effects on the calibration curve. Experimental results indicated that in the absence of a glass window, the probes' voltage readings varied nonlinearly with solids concentration, the voltage readings were higher for blocks with a higher refractive index of the transparent medium, while the normalized calibration curves were similar for both sets of solids‐polymer blocks. In addition, the extent of the uniform distribution of illuminating and reflecting fibre strands at the tip of a mixed parallel optical fibre probe can change the degree of nonlinearity of its calibration curve. The application of glass windows thicker than the blind distance decreased the degree of nonlinearity of the calibration curve, yet did not completely eliminate it.

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This research investigated the forced convection heat transfer by using the swirling impinging jets. This study focused on nozzles, which equipped with twisted tapes via a numerical approach. The computational domain created by utilizing the fully structured meshes, which had very high quality from the viewpoint of aspect ratio and skewness. The numerical simulations were performed at four different jet-to-plate distances (L/D) of 2, 4, 6 and 8, four Reynolds numbers of 4000, 8000, 12000 and 16000, and also four different twist ratios (y/w) of 3, 4, 5 and 6. The mesh-independent tests were conducted based upon the average Nusselt number. The obtained results revealed good agreement with the available experimental data from the open literature. It was observed that for jet-to-plate distances of L/D=6 and L/D=8, the heat transfer rate of swirling jets was more than regular jets, and heat transfer rate at higher Reynolds numbers increased due to the greater rate of momentum transfer. Besides, the calculation done for a pair of jets, and the results shown that using two jets, instead of one, could increase the rate of heat transfer in the same air flow rate.

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