• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2482-2487
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• 2007

Numerical simulations are conducted for the analysis of a thermal mass air flow sensor with periodic heating pulses on silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure. This study aims to find the locations of temperature sensors on the thin membrane and the heating pulse conditions, that the higher sensitivity can be achieved, for the development of a MEMS fabricated mass air flow sensor which is driven in periodic heating pulse. The simulations, thus, focus on the membrane temperature profile according to variation of the flow velocity, heating duration time and imposed power. The flow velocity of the simulations is ranging from 3 m/s to 35 m/s, heating duration time from 1 ms to 3 ms and imposed power from 50 mW to 90 mW. The corresponding Reynolds numbers vary from 1000 to 10000.