Magnetically driven micro ball valves fabricated by multilayer adhesive film bonding

A new manufacturing method has been used to produce a magnetically driven micro ball valve. The micro ball valve consists of three hot-embossed polymer layers and three metal layers. The layers are bonded with adhesive films which are microstructured by a punching process. The valve uses iron balls with a diameter of 3 mm as moving parts driven by a commercially available coil. The valve switches up to 200 kPa differential pressure with an initial current of 300 mA. The on–off switch frequency investigated was up to 30 Hz. In addition, the valve can operate as a proportional valve regulating the outlet pressure range from 0 to 112.5 kPa at an input pressure of 200 kPa. A switching time of 10 ms was measured.