Browsing by Subject "Mixing performance"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Open Access
Modeling of an ac-electro-osmosis based microfluidic mixer
(ASME, 2017) Uslu, H. Dilara; Canpolat, Ç.; Çetin, Barbaros
The purpose of this study is presenting an active micromixer, which is based on AC electro-osmotic flow driven on 3D micro wires. In order to solve governing equations of AC electroosmosis, a commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics® is implemented. Different wire configurations with various imposed electric fields and flow rates are tested for evaluating mixing efficiencies. The analyses show that mixing performance is significantly improved by number of the wires as well as wire orientation. It is also revealed that the degree of mixing can also be controlled by the tuning of the applied voltage for a given flow rate.
Open Access
Numerical analysis of mixing performance in sinusoidal microchannels based on particle motion in droplets
(Springer Verlag, 2015) Özkan, A.; Erdem, E. Y.
This numerical study was conducted to analyze and understand the parameters that affect the mixing performance of droplet-based flow in sinusoidal microfluidic channels. Finite element analysis was used for modeling fluid flow and droplet formation inside the microchannels via tracking interface between the two heterogeneous fluids along with multiple particle trajectories inside a droplet. The solutions of multiphase fluid flow and particle trajectories were coupled with each other so that drag on every single particle changed in every time step. To solve fluid motion in multiphase flow, level set method was used. Parametric study was repeated for different channel dimensions and different sinusoidal channel profiles. These results were compared with mixing in droplets inside a straight microchannel. Additionally, tracking of multiple particles inside a droplet was performed to simulate the circulating flow profile inside the droplets. Based on the calculation of the dispersion length, particle trajectories, and velocities inside droplets, it is concluded that having smaller channel geometries increases the mixing performance inside the droplet. This also shows that droplet-based fluid flow in microchannels is very suitable for performing chemical reactions inside droplets as it will occur faster. Moreover, narrower and sinusoidal microchannels showed better dispersion length difference compared to straight and wider microchannels.