Related papers: Shear flow pumping in open microfluidic systems
Liquid-phase exfoliation, the use of a sheared liquid to delaminate graphite into few-layer graphene, is a promising technique for the large-scale production of graphene. But the micro and nanoscale fluid-structure processes controlling the…
Microfluidic chips provide unparalleled control over droplets and jets, which have advanced all natural sciences. However, microfluidic applications could be vastly expanded by increasing the per-channel throughput and directly exploiting…
We consider pressure-driven flows in wide microchannels, and discuss how a transverse shear, generated by misaligned superhydrophobic walls, impacts cross-sectional spreading of Brownian particles. We show that such a transverse shear can…
Classical nucleation theory offers a good framework for understanding the common features of new phase formation processes in metastable homogeneous media at rest. However, nucleation processes in liquids are ubiquitously affected by…
Microfluidic systems are usually fabricated with soft materials that deform due to the fluid stresses. Recent experimental and theoretical studies on the steady flow in shallow deformable microchannels have shown that the flow rate is a…
Molecular dynamics simulations of dense and rarefied fluids comprising small chain molecules in chemically patterned nano-channels predict a novel switching from Poiseuille to plug flow along the channel. We also demonstrate behavior akin…
The motion of a deformable active particle in linear shear flow is explored theoretically. Based on symmetry considerations, in two spatial dimensions, we propose coupled nonlinear dynamical equations for the particle position, velocity,…
Chip placement plays an important role in physical design. While generative models like diffusion models offer promising learning-based solutions, current methods have the following limitations: they use random synthetic data for…
Despite the viscosity of a fluid ranges over several orders of magnitudes and is extremely sensitive to microscopic structure and molecular interactions, it has been conjectured that its (opportunely normalized) minimum displays a universal…
In this paper we present a comprehensive study of the step-emulsification process for high-throughput production of (sub-)$\mu$m-size monodisperse droplets. The microfluidic device combines a Hele-Shaw nanofluidic cell with a step-like…
Multiphase shear flows often show banded structures that affect the global behavior of complex fluids e.g. in microdevices. Here we investigate numerically the banding of emulsions, i.e. the formation of regions of high and low volume…
Different from previous modelings of self-propelled particles, we develop a method to propel the particles with a constant average velocity instead of a constant force. This constant propulsion velocity (CPV) approach is validated by its…
We use dynamical systems theory to construct the normal form of the Navier--Stokes equations for the flow of a thin layer of fluid upon a solid substrate. The normal form equations illuminate the fluid dynamics by decoupling the long-term…
This paper presents a compact system, OpenPneu, to support the pneumatic actuation for multi-chambers on soft robots. Micro-pumps are employed in the system to generate airflow and therefore no extra input as compressed air is needed. Our…
Acoustically driven mixing of small fluid volumes is reported. Using surface acoustic waves on a mixer chip, conversion of those into bulk waves, and employing wave guiding effects enables us to distribute a set of "virtual sources" for…
We use a theoretical model to explore how fluid dynamics, in particular, the pressure gradient and wall shear stress in a channel, affect the deposition of particles flowing in a microfluidic network. Experiments on transport of colloidal…
Microfluidic systems are now being designed with precision to execute increasingly complex tasks. However, their operation often requires numerous external control devices due to the typically linear nature of microscale flows, which has…
We describe channel flows in a continuum model of deformable nematic particles. In a simple shear flow, deformability leads to a nonlinear coupling of strain rate and vorticity, and results in shape oscillations or flow alignment. The final…
Shear-induced droplet formation is important in many industrial applications, primarily focusing on droplet sizes and pinch-off frequency. We propose a one-dimensional mathematical model that describes the effect of shear forces on the…
We study shear-driven liquid flow over a planar surface with an embedded gas-filled groove, with the gas-liquid interface protruding slightly above or below the planar surface. The flow direction is along the groove, taken to be much longer…