MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS (MEMS)AND FLUID FLOWS

The micromachining technology that emerged in the late 1980s is able to provide microsized sensors and actuators. These micro transducers can be integrated with signal conditioning and processing circuitry to form microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that can perform realtime distributed control. This capability opens up new territory for flow control research. However, because of the large surfacetovolume ratio in micronscale configurations, surface effects dominate the fluid flowing through thes...