Abstract
Droplet breakup and merging in a microfluidic channel, which are applied to lab-on-a-chip devices for biomedical testing and synthesis, are simulated numerically by solving the conservation equations of mass and momentum. The droplet surface is computed using the volume-of-fluid method of the commercial code FLUENT. The numerical simulation demonstrates that the variation of obstacle geometry in a microchannel determines the droplet breakup pattern and the volume fraction of split droplets. The computation also shows that droplet merging depends on the channel-chamber width ratio. The effect of microchannel and obstacle configuration on the droplet motion is investigated to find the optimal conditions for droplet breakup and merging.
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Gihun Son received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University in 1986 and 1988, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA in 1996. Dr. Son is currently a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea. His research interests are in the areas of multiphase dynamics, heat transfer, and power system simulation.
Jaewon Lee received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Sogang University in 2013. He is a graduate student of Mechanical Engineering at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea. Mr. Lee’s research interests are in the area of microfluidics and multiphase dynamics.
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Lee, J., Lee, W. & Son, G. Numerical study of droplet breakup and merging in a microfluidic channel. J Mech Sci Technol 27, 1693–1699 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-013-0418-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-013-0418-y