Droplet breakup in the square microchannel with a short square constriction to generate slug flow

Droplet breakup in micro-constrictions is an important phenomenon in industrial applications. This work aimed to investigate the droplet breakup in the square microchannel with a short square constriction to generate the slug flow, which drew little attention before. Mechanism analysis indicated that this breakup process included the shear-force-dominated, squeezing-force-dominated, and pinch-off stages. Non-uniform daughter droplets were generated in the constriction with their interface restricted in the horizontal and perpendicular directions by the microchannel walls. The average relative deviation of the daughter droplet size was < 30%, much lower than that for the breakup with the daughter droplet restricted only in one direction. An empirical equation with a deviation of < 20% was provided to show the dependence of the daughter droplet size on the operation conditions. The comparison results suggested that the different restriction effects of microchannel wall on daughter droplets led to the different breakup mechanisms in different constrictions.

Fluid-Structure Interaction Approach to Single Particle in a Square Microchannel

Inertial microfluidic technique has been widely applied on particle/cell manipulation and detection. To understand the physical principle of this technique more detailed, the interaction of fluid and particle was studied through the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) method. The equilibrium positions of finite-size particles with different diameters were simulated at moderate Reynolds numbers. The flow structure around two typical particles was analysed. The vortex in the front of the particle retards particle’s translation leading to the lag velocity increasing. Finally, the rotation velocity and the rotational-induced force analysed quantitatively to demonstrate that particle’s self-rotation significantly promotes its inertial migration.

Experimental Study of the Deposition of Magnetic Particles on the Walls of Microchannels

This study analyzes experimentally the deposition of magnetic beads on the walls of a square microchannel by the action of a nearby cubical magnet. The deposition has been studied for different magnetic bead sizes, flow rates, magnetic conditions and with solutions of magnetic and non-magnetic particles. Images of the time evolution of the deposition under the different conditions have been analyzed to determine the spatial distribution of the accumulation and the growth rate of the depositions. It has been found that the way in which the magnetic beads are deposited on the walls of the microchannel depends strongly on their size and the magnetic configuration. The accumulation of the major part of particles is on the wall closest to the magnet and, depending on the size of the particles, near the magnet leading and trailing edges or near the center of the magnet. The experiments with magnetic and non-magnetic particles revealed the screening effect of the non-magnetic particles on the deposition. In this case, the non-magnetic particles displace the deposition toward the region near the center of the magnet and near the trailing edge.

Transport of Non-Spherical Particles in Square Microchannel Flows: A Review

Understanding the behavior of a single particle flowing in a microchannel is a necessary step in designing and optimizing efficient microfluidic devices for the separation, concentration, counting, detecting, sorting, or mixing of particles in suspension. Although the inertial migration of spherical particles has been deeply investigated in the last two decades, most of the targeted applications involve shaped particles whose behavior in microflows is still far from being completely understood. While traveling in a channel, a particle both rotates and translates: it translates in the streamwise direction driven by the fluid flow but also in the cross-section perpendicular to the streamwise direction due to inertial effects. In addition, particles’ rotation and translation motions are coupled. Most of the existing works investigating the transport of particles in microchannels decouple their rotational and lateral migration behaviors: particle rotation is mainly studied in simple shear flows, whereas lateral migration is neglected, and studies on lateral migration mostly focus on spherical particles whose rotational behavior is simple. The aim of this review is to provide a summary of the different works existing in the literature on the inertial migration and the rotational behavior of non-spherical particles with a focus and discussion on the remaining scientific challenges in this field.

Concentration profiles of ions and particles under hydrodynamic focusing in Y-shaped square microchannel

Three-dimensional ion and particle concentrations under hydrodynamic focusing in a Y-shaped square microchannel are numerically simulated to clarify the decrease of the ion concentration along the flow direction within the focused particle stream. The simulation model is theoretically governed by the laminar flow and advection–diffusion equations. The governing equations are solved by the finite volume method. The ion and particle concentration distributions at five cross sections after the confluence of the branch channels are analyzed in 30 cases in which the sheath to sample flow rate ratio Qsh/Qsam and the Reynolds number Re are varied as parameters. The results show that the decrease of the cross-sectional average ion concentration along the flow direction within the particle stream $$\overline{c}_{i}$$ c ¯ i is described by the diffusion length during the residence time with a characteristic velocity scale. In addition, the deformation of the particle stream due to inertial effects is described by a scaled Reynolds number that is a function of the flow rate ratio. The simulated particle stream thicknesses are validated by theory and a simple experiment. This paper reveals the relationship between the ion and particle concentrations and the dimensionless parameters for hydrodynamic focusing in the Y-shaped square microchannel under typical conditions.

Investigation of Hydrodynamic and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Gas-liquid Taylor flow in Square Microchannel

Heat transfer and flow characteristics under air-water Taylor flow in a square microchannel with T-junction were investigated in this work. Different hydraulic diameters of models were discussed numerically by VOF method. Flow patterns such as bubbly flow, slug flow, annular flow and churn flow were identified by both numerical simulation and experimental methods. Simulation results including bubble formation process, bubble length, bubble velocity, void fraction and heat transfer fit well with literature data. The pressure differential of two sides in gas phase played an important role in bubble development. The gas and liquid superficial velocities were found to have a significant impact on bubble behavior. And the higher liquid viscosity would promote higher bubble velocity, also enhance heat transfer, but weaken the void fraction. The results showed a tiny but not ignorable effect of geometric dimensioning on bubble and liquid slug lengths. An appropriate correlation was proposed to estimate bubble length, and the deviation was −10 ~ + 15 %. By using moving frame of reference technique, the internal circulations inside the moving slugs were displayed more clearly.