Quasi-3D Modeling and Efficient Simulation of Laminar Flows in Microfluidic Devices
A quasi-3D model has been developed to simulate the flow in planar microfluidic systems with low Reynolds numbers. The model was developed by decomposing the flow profile along the height of a microfluidic system into a Fourier series. It was validated against the analytical solution for flow in a s...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2016-10-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/10/1639 |
| Summary: | A quasi-3D model has been developed to simulate the flow in planar microfluidic systems with low Reynolds numbers. The model was developed by decomposing the flow profile along the height of a microfluidic system into a Fourier series. It was validated against the analytical solution for flow in a straight rectangular channel and the full 3D numerical COMSOL Navier-Stokes solver for flow in a T-channel. Comparable accuracy to the full 3D numerical solution was achieved by using only three Fourier terms with a significant decrease in computation time. The quasi-3D model was used to model flows in a micro-flow cytometer chip on a desktop computer and good agreement between the simulation and the experimental results was found. |
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| ISSN: | 1424-8220 |