• 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.

• 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 Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.531-537
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• 2004

In this paper, the static and dynamic characteristics in the sensor tube of a mass flow controller(MFC) were studied by experiments. In the sensor tube of MFC. the difference of temperature between inlet and outlet was necessary for calculating the mass flow rate. Therefore, the relations among flow rate, heat generated by heating wire. and sensor location were investigated to find optimized condition. Finally, the relation between sensor voltage through analog digital conversion(ADC) and flow rate in the sensor tube can be represented. Based on this study, static and dynamic characteristics of sensor tube can be used for design of mass flow controller.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.35-39
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• 2003

In this paper, the heat transfer phenomena in the sensor tube of a mass flow controller(MFC) were studied by experiments. In the sensor tube of MFC, the difference of temperature between inlet and outlet was necessary for calculating the mass flow rate. Therefore, the relations of flow rate, generated heat by heating wire, sensor location and tube thickness were investigated to find the optimized condition. Based on this study, static and dynamic characteristics of sensor can be used for mass flow controller.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.29-34
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• 2008

This paper describes the fabrication and characterization of a differential pressure type integrated mass-flow controller made of stainless steel for reactive and corrosive gases. The fabricated mass-flow controller is composed of a normally closed valve and differential pressure sensor. A stacked solenoid actuator mounted on a base-block is utilized for precise and rapid control of gas flow. The differential pressure flow sensor consisting of four diaphragms can detect a flow rate by deflection of diaphragm. By a feedback control from the flow sensor to the valve actuator, it is possible to keep the flow rate constant. This device shows a fast response less than 0.3 sec. Also, this device shows accuracy less than 0.1% of full scale. It is confirmed that this device is not attacked by toxic gas, so the integrated mass-flow controller can be applied to advanced semiconductor processes which need fine mass-flow control corrosive gases with fast response.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.308-313
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• 2003

Thermal mass flow meters (TMFMs) are most widely used for measuring mass flow rates in the semiconductor industry. A TMFM should have a short response time in order to measure the time-varying flow rate rapidly and accurately. Therefore it is important to study transient heat transfer phenomena in the sensor tube of a TMFM that is the most critical part in the TMFM. In the present work, a simple numerical model for transient heat transfer phenomena of the sensor tube of a TMFM is presented. Numerical solutions for the tube and fluid temperatures in a transient state are obtained using the proposed model and compared with experimental results to validate the proposed model. Based on numerical solutions, heat transfer mechanism in a transient state in the sensor tube is explained. Finally, a correlation for predicting the response time of a sensor tube is presented. The correlation is verified by experimental results.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.154-161
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• 2000

As a mass flow controller is widely used in many manufacturing processes for controlling a mass flow rate of gas with accuracy of 1%, several investigators have tried to describe the heat transfer phenomena in a sensor tube of an MFC. They suggested a few analytic solutions and numerical models based on simple assumptions, which are physically unrealistic. In the present work, the heat transfer phenomena in the sensor tube of the MFC are studied by using both experimental and numerical methods. The numerical model is introduced to estimate the temperature profile in the sensor tube as well as in the gas stream. In the numerical model, the conjugate heat transfer problem comprising the tube wall and the gas stream is analyzed to fully understand the heat transfer interaction between the sensor tube and the fluid stream using a single domain approach. This numerical model is further verified by experimental investigation. In order to describe the transport of heat energy in both the flow region and the sensor tube, the Nusselt number at the interface between the tube wall and the gas stream as well as heatlines is presented from the numerical solution.

• 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 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.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.