Cascade compressor

Abstract

The compressor cascade comprises a plurality of tandem-connected membrane pumps, each of the pumps having a plurality of stroke chambers whose volumes decrease in the direction of the fluid flow through the pumps. Each chamber has several parallel-connected input/output channels for interconnecting the individual membrane pumps and a check valve in each input/output channel for forcing the fluid in a specified direction. By electrostatic attraction forces, the membranes in the pumps are energized synchronously to resonance oscillations of the same frequency and deflection, building up the necessary operating pressure as the fluid is moved from the stroke chamber of one membrane pump into the smaller volume stroke chamber of the next succeeding membrane pump. The movement of the fluid through the membrane pumps of the compressor cascade leads to its compression, and the pressure at the end of the cascade is related to the reduction in volume of each succeeding stroke chamber.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.