A two-port model for wave propagation along a long circular microchannel

A compact model for oscillatory flow in a long microchannel with a circular cross-section is derived from the linearised Navier–Stokes equations. The resulting two-port model includes the effects of viscosity due to rarefied gas in the slip flow regime, inertia, compressibility and losses due to heat exchange. Both an acoustic impedance T network and an acoustic admittance Π network are presented for implementation in system level and circuit simulation tools. Also, reduced T and Π networks with constant component values are given to be used in the low frequency region. They are useful in time domain simulations, too. To verify the analytical model, simulations with a harmonic finite element solver for acoustic viscous flow are performed for microchannels exploiting the axisymmetry. The simulation results with both open and closed outlet conditions are compared with the two-port model with excellent agreement. Contribution of the slip conditions and the accuracy of the simple model are demonstrated.     

Acoustically generated flows in microchannel flexural plate wave sensors: Effects of compressibility

Acoustically generated flowfields in flexural plate wave sensors filled with a Newtonian liquid (water) are considered. A computational model based on compressible flow is developed for the sensor with a moving wall for pumping and mixing applications in microchannels. For the compressible flow formulation, an isothermal equation of state for water is employed. The velocity and pressure profiles for different parameters including flexural wall frequency, channel height, amplitude of the wave and wave length are investigated for four microchannel height/length geometries. It is found that the flowfield becomes pseudo-steady after sufficient number of flexural cycles. Both instantaneous and time averaged results show that an evanescent wave is generated in the microchannel. The predicted flows generated by the FPWs are compared with results available in the literature. The proposed device can be exploited to integrate micropumps with complex microfluidic chips improving the portability of micro-total-analysis systems.     

水下爆炸冲击波数据记录仪的设计与实现

本文从水下爆炸冲击波的概念出发,介绍了水下爆炸冲击波的特征,应用爆炸气泡运动理论确定了波形参数。然后根据水下冲击波的特征,分析了水下爆炸冲击波数据记录仪的测试原理,介绍了两种模拟实际水下爆炸冲击波信号的测试方法。再通过简易的水下爆炸试验,得到了冲击波的压力-时间历史曲线及其参数并与理论值作了比较。最后通过直线拟合和误差分析进一步证明了文中提出的水下爆炸冲击波测试方法是一套科学的、有效的冲击波压力测试方法。     

Electrophoretic motion of two spherical particles in a rectangular microchannel

The electrophoretic motion of two spherical particles in an aqueous electrolyte solution in a small rectangular microchannel was studied in this paper. A theoretical model was developed to describe the electric field, the flow field, and the particle motion. A direct numerical simulation method using the finite element method is employed to solve the model. The simulation results clearly show how the presence of one particle influences the electric field, the flow field, and the motion of the adjacent particle. Such an influence weakens with the separation distance. In addition to the zeta potentials, the particles motion depends on their sizes: the smaller particle moves slightly faster. For a faster particle moving from behind of a slower particle, the simulation results show that the faster particle will climb and then pass the slower particle when the two particles centers are not located on the same line parallel to the applied electric field.     

Numerical simulation of growth of a vapor bubble during flow boiling of water in a microchannel

The present study is performed to numerically analyze the growth of a vapor bubble during flow of water through a microchannel. The complete Navier–Stokes equations, along with continuity and energy equations, are solved using the SIMPLER (semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations revised) method. The liquid–vapor interface is captured using the level set technique. The microchannel is 200-m square in cross-section and the bubble is placed at the center of the channel with superheated liquid around it. The results show steady initial bubble growth followed by a rapid axial expansion after the bubble fills the channel cross-section. A trapped liquid layer is observed between the bubble and the channel as it elongates. The bubble growth rate increased with the incoming liquid superheat, but decreased with Reynolds number. The formation of a vapor patch at the walls is found to be dependent on the time the bubble takes to fill up the channel. The upstream interface of the bubble is found to exhibit both forward and reverse movement during bubble growth. The results show little effect of gravity on the bubble growth rate under the specified conditions. The bubble growth features obtained from the numerical results are found to be qualitatively similar to experimental observations.     

Blood flow driven by surface tension in a microchannel

This study aims to identify distinct blood flow characteristics in a microchannel at different sloping angles. The channel is determined by a bottom hydrophilic stripe on a glass substrate and a fully covered hydrophobic glass substrate. The channel has a height of 3 μm, and a width of 100 μm. It is observed that increasing the sloping angle from −90° (downward flow) to 90° (upward flow) increases the blood flow rate monotonically. These peculiar behaviors on the micro scale are explained by a dynamic model that establishes the balance among the inertial, surface tension, gravitational, and frictional forces. The frictional force is further related to the effective hematocrit. The model is used to calculate the frictional force, and thus the corresponding hematocrit, which is smaller when the blood flows upward, reducing the frictional force.     

Axial particle displacements in fluid slugs after passing a simple serpentiform microchannel

In this work, we designed a simple microchannel to separate particles in fluids by size. We found that mixtures of polystyrene 2 and 0.5 μm particles in a fluid slug can be differentiated by size after passing a long serpentiform microchannel. In contrast to the tubular pinch effect, which separates the particle in radial direction, we found that the particle suspensions in fluid slugs are displaced along the flow directions. The separation performance increases with the increasing flow velocity. The feature of differentiation along the flow directions in our device leads to the result that the separation process can be easily improved by stretching the slug before cutting the slug into pieces. Furthermore, the alternative air slugs between working fluid slugs can also prevent clogging inside the microchannels.     

Numerical investigation of micro shock waves generation

The shock wave propagation in the micro channel of the different sizes is studied numerically in order to estimate the possibility of the experimental apparatus development. The full compressible Navier–Stokes equations are used for the numerical simulation. The shock wave velocity attenuation is found for the channel height smaller than H = 200 μm. The influence of the channel size and of the diaphragm pressure ratio on the shock wave velocity is considered. The considerable influence of the viscous effects on the shock propagation is shown.

Efficient mixing of viscoelastic fluids in a microchannel at low Reynolds number

In this paper, we examined mixing of various two-fluid flows in a silicon/glass microchannel based on the competition of dominant forces in a flow field, namely viscous/elastic, viscous/viscous and viscous/inertial. Experiments were performed over a range of Deborah and Reynolds numbers (0.36 < De < 278, 0.005 < Re < 24.2). Fluorescent dye and microshperes were used to characterize the flow kinematics. Employing abrupt convergent/divergent channel geometry, we achieved efficient mixing of two-dissimilar viscoelastic fluids at very low Reynolds number. Enhanced mixing was achieved through elastically induced flow instability at negligible diffusion and inertial effects (i.e. enormous Peclet and Elasticity numbers). This viscoelastic mixing was achieved over a short effective mixing length and relatively fast flow velocities.     

Wavelet based shock wave and muzzle blast classification for different supersonic projectiles

The article presents a pattern recognition approach to acoustic shock wave and muzzle blast detection. Gunshot signatures are divided into multiple classes, given by combination of 3 types of supersonic weapons of different caliber: 7.62 mm, 5.56 mm and 9 mm and 3 types of acoustic events: shock wave, muzzle blast and reflections. The classification is performed on wavelet compressed 100 μs time frames. The experiment shows that the choice of a fitting wavelet base is crucial for the quality of recognition.