Tracking of Capillary Interface in Microfluidic Channels

Author(s):  
Prashant R. Waghmare ◽  
Farhan Ahmad ◽  
David S. Nobes ◽  
Sushanta K. Mitra

Capillarity is commonly used for fluid transport in microfluidic devices. The capillary flow can be divided into three different flow regimes: entry regime, Poiseuille regime, and surface tension regime as shown in Fig. 1[1]. Generally, it is anticipated that at the entrance of any narrow confinement, the flow goes through entrance flow regime. For capillary flow, this entrance regime has generally been neglected in the literature. Beyond this entrance regime, the flow attains the fully developed velocity profile across the channel, which is termed as a Poiseuille flow. Moreover, in the capillary flow, the interface is always under traction — due to the capillary forces and hence, a third flow regime needs to be considered behind the interface which is referred as the surface tension regime. These regimes are yet to be experimentally explored and analyzed. An “in-house” developed μ-PIV system is used to quantify the flow field at the liquid/air interface (surface tension regime) in a rectangular glass microchannel of dimension 1.5 mm (width) × 500 μm (depth). The magnitude of velocity and the flow front evolution along the microchannel is calculated utilizing commercially available image processing software. Figure 2 shows the μ-PIV experimental setup used here. The main components of the experimental setup include an imaging device, magnification optics, and a continuous laser source (473 nm) in back illumination mode. The fluorescent particle of 1.9 m in diameter with DI water is used as a working fluid. The concentration of the microparticles is very less which is approximately 1%, therefore the effect of microbead concentration on the wetting properties is considered to be negligible for the present study. Moreover, it is assumed that the surface properties of the particles also do not affect the fluid flow. The capillary flow interface is captured and the corresponding processed images are presented to depict the velocity field at the liquid/air interface. The enlarged view of the microchannel cross section is shown in Fig. 2. The section A-A is the location at which the images are captured for the analysis.

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (14) ◽  
pp. 4313
Author(s):  
Bronisław Jańczuk ◽  
Katarzyna Szymczyk ◽  
Anna Zdziennicka

Measurements were made of the surface tension of the aqueous solutions of p-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl) phenoxypoly(ethylene glycols) having 10 oxyethylene groups in the molecule (Triton X-100, TX100) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) with Zonyl FSN-100 (FC6EO14, FC1) as well as with Zonyl FSO-100 (FC5EO10, FC2) ternary mixtures. The obtained results were compared to those provided by the Fainerman and Miller equation and to the values of the solution surface tension calculated, based on the contribution of a particular surfactant in the mixture to the reduction of water surface tension. The changes of the aqueous solution ternary surfactants mixture surface tension at the constant concentration of TX100 and CTAB mixture at which the water surface tension was reduced to 60 and 50 mN/m as a function of fluorocarbon surfactant concentration, were considered with regard to the composition of the mixed monolayer at the water-air interface. Next, this composition was applied for the calculation of the concentration of the particular surfactants in the monolayer using the Frumkin equation. On the other hand, the Gibbs surface excess concentration was determined only for the fluorocarbon surfactants. The tendency of the particular surfactants to adsorb at the water-air interface was discussed, based on the Gibbs standard free energy of adsorption which was determined using different methods. This energy was also deduced, based on the surfactant tail surface tension and tail-water interface tension.


1960 ◽  
Vol s3-101 (55) ◽  
pp. 313-332
Author(s):  
H. E. HINTON

In flies of the subfamily Muscinae the egg-shell has both an outer and an inner meshwork layer, each of which holds a continuous film of air. Between these two meshwork layers there is a more or less thick middle layer to which the shell chiefly owes its mechanical strength. Holes or aeropyles through the middle layer effect the continuity of the outer and inner films of air. Both meshwork layers consist of struts that arise perpendicularly from the middle layer. In both layers the struts are branched at their apices in a plane normal to their long axes. These horizontal branches form a fine and open hydrofuge network that provides a large water-air interface when the egg is immersed. When it rains or when the egg is otherwise immersed in water, the film of air held in the outer meshwork layer of the shell funtions as a plastron. To be an efficient respiratory structure a plastron must resist wetting by both the hydrostatic pressures and the surface active materials to which it is normally exposed. The plastrons of all the Muscinae tested resist wetting in clean water by pressures far in excess of any they are likely to encounter in nature. The resistance of a plastron to hydrostatic pressures varies directly as the surface tension of the water, and the surface tension of water in contact with the decomposing materials in which the Muscinae lay their eggs is much lowered by surface active materials. These considerations seem to provide an explanation for the great resistance of the plastron of the Muscinae to wetting by excess pressures and for the paradox that the plastrons of these terrestrial eggs are more resistant to high pressures than are the plastrons of some aquatic insects that live in clean water.


Author(s):  
Joaquin E. Moran ◽  
David S. Weaver

An experimental study was conducted to investigate damping and fluidelastic instability in tube arrays subjected to two-phase cross-flow. The purpose of this research was to improve our understanding of these phenomena and how they are affected by void fraction and flow regime. The working fluid used was Freon 11, which better models steam-water than air-water mixtures in terms of vapour-liquid mass ratio as well as permitting phase changes due to pressure fluctuations. The damping measurements were obtained by “plucking” the monitored tube from outside the test section using electromagnets. An exponential function was fitted to the tube decay trace, producing consistent damping measurements and minimizing the effect of frequency shifting due to fluid added mass fluctuations. The void fraction was measured using a gamma densitometer, introducing an improvement over the Homogeneous Equilibrium Model (HEM) in terms of density and velocity predictions. It was found that the Capillary number, when combined with the two-phase damping ratio (interfacial damping), shows a well defined behaviour depending on the flow regime. This observation can be used to develop a better methodology to normalize damping results. The fluidelastic results agree with previously presented data when analyzed using the HEM and the half-power bandwidth method. The interfacial velocity is suggested for fluidelastic studies due to its capability for collapsing the fluidelastic data. The interfacial damping was introduced as a tool to include the effects of flow regime into the stability maps.


Author(s):  
Birce Dikici ◽  
Matthew J. Lehman

Surface tension and solution evaporation of aqueous solutions of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), ECOSURF™ EH-14, and ECOSURF™ SA-9 under natural convection is examined through experimental methods. SLS is an anionic surfactant while EH-14 and SA-9 are environmentally-friendly nonionic surfactants. Surfactants are known to affect evaporation performance of solutions and are studied in relation to water loss prevention and heat dissipation. Surfactants could be useful under drought conditions which present challenges to water management on a yearly basis in arid areas of the world. Recent water scarcity in the greater Los Angeles area, south eastern Africa nations, eastern Australia and eastern Mediterranean countries has high cost of water loss by evaporation. Surfactants are studied as a potential method of suppressing evaporation in water reservoirs. Surfactants are also studied as performance enhancers for the working fluid of heat dissipation devices, such as pulsating heat pipes used for electronics cooling. Some surfactants have been shown to lower thermal resistances and friction pressure in such devices and thereby increase their efficiency. The static surface tensions of the aqueous-surfactant solutions are measured with surface tensiometer using Wilhelmy plate method. The surfactants are shown to lower surface tension significantly from pure water. The surface tension values found at the Critical Micelle Concentration are 33.8 mN/m for SLS, 30.3 mN/m for EH-14, and 30.0 mN/m for SA-9. All three surfactants reduced natural convection water loss over 5 days with SLS showing the greatest effect on evaporation rates. The maximum evaporation reduction by each surfactant from distilled water with no surfactants after 5 days is 26.1% for SLS, 20.8% for EH-14, and 18.4% for SA-9.


1979 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1022-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dj. Dragcevic ◽  
M. Vukovic ◽  
D. Cukman ◽  
V. Pravdic

Langmuir ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (25) ◽  
pp. 7600-7606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mabya Fechner ◽  
Joachim Koetz

Author(s):  
Ryo Sato ◽  
Yuki Shimizu ◽  
Hiraku Matsukuma ◽  
Wei Gao

Abstract Confocal probes are widely employed in many industrial fields due to the depth-sectioning effect. The author’s group has also proposed a chromatic confocal probe employing a mode-locked femtosecond laser source which can realize an axial resolution of 30 nm and a measurement range of 40 μm Efforts have also been made to improve the thermal stability of the developed femtosecond laser chromatic confocal probe so that the probe can be applied for long-term displacement measurement or surface profile measurement. Meanwhile, surface profile measurement has not been carried out by using the developed femtosecond laser chromatic confocal probe. For the verification of the performance of developed probe in profile measurement, in this paper, an experimental setup is built and a basic experiment is carried out. By using the probe with further improved thermal stability, the measurement of a sample surface profile is carried out. In this paper, the development of the experimental setup with the femtosecond laser chromatic confocal probe, as well as the results of the surface profile measurements, is presented.


Author(s):  
Toshifumi Ohkubo ◽  
Nobuyuki Terada ◽  
Yoshikazu Yoshida

A resin-based optical total analysis system (O-TAS) which consists both of microfluidic channels and light waveguides [1] is thought to be one of the most promising components in developing a “ubiquitous human healthcare system” in the near future. Along with this technology trend, we have already developed a transparent epoxy-resin-based optical TAS chip which has a specially prepared light waveguide structure of radially arranged configuration at an intersection portion with a microfluidic channel, in order to detect directivity of fluorescence from fluorescent substance attached micro particles [2],[3]. Schematic diagram of the optical TAS is shown in Figure 1. In the latest research, utilizing an AC modulated laser source and time-series averaging function on detected signal waveforms, we could have successfully obtained directivities of fluorescence from 5-μm-diameter particles with higher signal to noise (S/N) ratio [3].


Author(s):  
Joaquin E. Moran ◽  
David S. Weaver

An experimental study was conducted to investigate two-phase damping in tube arrays. The objective was to compare different measurement methodologies in order to obtain a more reliable damping estimate. This will allow for improved guidelines related to failures due to fluidelastic instability in tube bundles. The methods compared were the traditionally used half-power bandwidth, the logarithmic decrement and an exponential fitting to the tube decay response. The working fluid used was Refrigerant 11 (Freon), which better models the real steam-water problem, as it allows for phase change. The void fraction was measured using a gamma densitometer, introducing an improvement over the traditional Homogeneous Equilibrium Model (HEM) in terms of velocity and density predictions. The results obtained by using the half-power bandwidth method agree with data previously reported for two-phase flow. The experiments showed that the half-power bandwidth produces higher damping values than the other two, but only up to a certain void fraction. After that point, the results obtained from the three methods are very similar. The exponential fitting proved to be more consistent than the logarithmic decrement, and it is not as sensitive as the half-power bandwidth to the frequency shifting caused by the change in added mass around the tube. By plotting the damping ratio as a function of void fraction, pitch mass flux and flow regime, we were able to verify that damping is more dependent on void fraction and flow regime than on mass flux.


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