• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1987.07a
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• pp.481-485
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• 1987

The fabrication of a micro mass flow sensor on a silicon chip by means of micro-machining technology is described on this paper. The operation of micro mass flow sensor is based on the heat transfer from a heated chip to a fluid. The temperature differences on the chip is a measure for the flow velocity in a plane parallel with the chip surface. An anisotropic etching technigue was used for the formation of the V-type groove in this fabrication. The micro mass flow sensor is made up of two main parts ; A thin glass plate embodying the connecting parts and mass flow sensor parts in silicon chip. This sensor have a very small size and a neglible dead space. Micro mass flow sensor can fabricate on silicon chip by micro machining technology too.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1783-1788
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• 2004

In the present paper, a micro flow sensor, which can be used at bio-delivery systems and micro heat pumps, is developed. For this, the micro flow sensor is integrated on a quartz wafer ($SiO_2$) and is manufactured by simple and convenient microfabrication processes. The micro flow sensor aims for measuring mass flow rates in the low range of about $0{\sim}20$ SCCM. The micro flow sensor is composed of temperature sensors, a heater, and a flow microchannel. The temperature sensors and the heater are manufactured by the sputtering processes in this study. In the microfabrication processes, stainless steel masks with different patterns are used to deposit alumel and chromel for temperature sensors and nichrome for the heater on the quartz wafer. The microchannel is made of Polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) easily. A deposited quartz wafer is bonded to the PDMS microchannel by using the air plasma. Finally, we confirmed the good operation of the present micro flow sensor by measuring flow rate.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 2006

A new silicon micro flow sensor with multiple temperature sensing elements was proposed and fabricated in considering wide range flow velocity measuring device. Thermal mass flow sensor measures the asymmetry of temperature profile around the heater which is modulated by the fluid flow. A micro mass flow sensor was normally composed of a central heater and a pair of temperature sensing elements around it. A new 2-D wide range micro flow sensor structure with three pairs of temperature sensing elements and a central heater was proposed and numerically simulated by Finite Difference Formulation to confirm the feasibility of the wide flow range sensor structure. To confirm the simulation result, the new flow sensor was fabricated on silicon substrate and the basic flow sensing properties of the sensor were measured.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.334-340
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• 2000

This paper presents the fabrication of a micro electromagnetic flow sensor for the liquid flow rate measurement. The micro electromagnetic flow sensor has some advantages such as a simple structure, no heat generation, a rapid response and no pressure loss. The principle of the micro electromagnetic flow sensor is based on Faraday's law. If conductive fluid passes through a magnetic field, the electromotive force is generated and detected by two electrodes on the wall of the flow channel. The flow sensor consists of two permanent magnets and a silicon flow channel with two electrodes. The dimension of the flow sensor is $9\;mm\;{\times}\;9\;mm\;{\times}\;1\;mm$. The micro flow channel is mainly fabricated by anisotropic etching of two silicon wafers, and the detection electrodes are fabricated by metal evaporation process. The characteristic of the fabricated flow sensor is obtained experimentally. When the flow rates of water with the conductance of $100-200\;{\mu}S/cm$ are 9.1 ml/min and 62 ml/min, the generated electromotive forces are $261\;{\mu}V$ and 7.3 mV, respectively.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.73-79
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• 2005

Micro sensor is very useful for flow measurements in a number of engineering applications. Especially, it is necessary for the development of MEMS. This paper presents the 3D numerical simulation of flows around a micro flow sensor, which is mounted on a flat plate. The effects of the sensor configuration (i.e. bottom gap) and the Reynolds number on the flow field are numerically investigated. The numerical results indicate that the bottom gap clearly affects the flow fields over the top surface of the sensor. The Reynolds numbers also show a significant influence on the flow nature, especially on the recirculation zone at downstream of the sensor. The present results illustrate a certain improvement on the flow field for the sensor installed at O.5mm above the wall with four pillars, comparing with that directly mounted on the wall.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.542-548
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• 2008

A thermal mass air flow sensor (MAFS), which consists of a micro-heater and thermo-resistive sensors on the silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure, is micro-fabricated by MEMS processes. Two thermo-resistive temperature sensors are located at $100{\mu}m$ upstream and downstream from the micro-heater respectively. The thermal characteristics are measured to find the best measurement indicator. The micro-heater is operated under constant power condition, and four flow indicators are investigated. The normalized temperature indicator shows good physical meaning and is easy to use in practice. It is found that the configurations and heating power of thermal-resistive elements are the dominant factors to determine the range of the flow measurement in the MAFS with higher sensitivity and accuracy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.573-579
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• 2009

A thermal mass air flow sensor, which consists of a micro-heater and thermal sensors on the silicon-nitride thin membrane structure, is micro-fabricated by MEMS processes. Three thermo-resistive sensors, one for the measurement of microheater temperature, the others for the measurement of membrane temperature upstream and downstream of the micro-heater respectively, are used. The micro-heater is operated under the constant temperature difference mode via a real time controller, based on inlet air temperature. Two design models for microfabricated flow sensor are compared with experimental results and confirmed their applicabilities and limitations. The thermal characteristics are measured to find the best flow indicator. It is found that two normalized temperature indicators can be adopted with some advantages in practice. The flow sensor with this control mode can be adopted for wide capability of high speed and sensitivity in the very low and medium velocity ranges.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.595-600
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• 2005

A micro flow sensor on silicon substrate allows the fabrication of small components where many different functions can be integrated so that the functionality of the sensors can be increased. Further more, the small size of the elements these sensors can be quite fast. A thermal mass flow sensor measures the asymmetry of temperature profile around the heater which is modulated by the fluid flow. In normal, a mass flow sensor is composed of a central heater and a pair of temperature sensing elements around the heater A new 2-D wide range micro flow sensor structure with three pairs of temperature sensors and a central heater was proposed and numerically simulated by Finite Difference formulation to confirm the feasibility of the flow sensor structure in time domain.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1217-1222
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• 2012

A wall flow sensor has been used for feedback flow control and wall shear stress measurement. In this study, we developed a new wall flow sensor by combining the PIV algorithm and the micro image sensor used in an optical mouse. The feasibility of the wall flow sensor was investigated by using simulated fluid flow experiments. Compared with the quadrature signal from imaging devices, the accuracy of the wall flow velocity measurement was improved and the dynamic range increased. In addition, the depth information of particles was also measured by using the defocusing imaging technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.363-366
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• 2005

A micro flow sensor on silicon substrate allows the fabrication of small components where many different functions can be integrated so that the functionality of the sensors can be increased. Further more, due to the small size of the elements the sensors can be quite fast. A thermal mass flow sensor measures the asymmetry of temperature profile around the heater which is modulated by the fluid flow. In normal, a mass flow sensor is composed of a central heater and a pair of temperature sensing elements around the heater. A new 2-D wide range micro flow sensor structure with three pairs of temperature sensors and a central heater was proposed and numerically simulated by the Finite difference formulation to confirm the feasibility of the flow sensor structure.