A Numerical Study of Electrode Arrangements for Precise Microdrop Generation in an Electrowetting-Based Digital Microfluidic Platform

Author(s):  
Yin Guan ◽  
Baiyun Li ◽  
Mengnan Zhu ◽  
Shengjie Cheng ◽  
Jiyue Tu ◽  
...  

Abstract Owing to the wide applications in a large variety of multi-disciplinary areas, electrowetting-based digital microfluidics (DMF) has received considerable attention in the last decade. However, because of the complexity involved in the droplet generation process, the techniques and configurations for precise and controllable microdrop generation are still unclear. In this paper, a numerical study has been performed to investigate the impact of electrode arrangements on microdrop generation in an electrowetting-based DMF Platform proposed by a previously published experimental work. The governing equations for the microfluidic flow are solved by a finite volume formulation with a two-step projection method on a fixed numerical domain. The free surface of the microdrop is tracked by a coupled level-set and volume-of-fluid (CLSVOF) method, and the surface tension at the free surface is computed by the continuum surface force (CSF) scheme. A simplified viscous force scheme based on the ‘Hele-Shaw cell’ model is adopted to evaluate the viscous force exerted by the parallel plates. The generation process has been simulated with three different electrode arrangements, namely, ‘SL’, ‘SW’, and ‘SQ’. The effect of electrode arrangement on microdrop volume has been investigated. Besides, the influences of the initial microdrop location and volume on the generation process for the ‘SL’ design have been studied. The results can be used to advance microdrop generation techniques for various electrowetting-based DMF applications.

Author(s):  
Pablo Go´mez ◽  
Julio Herna´ndez ◽  
Joaqui´n Lo´pez ◽  
Fe´lix Faura

A numerical study of the initial stages of wave breaking processes in shallow water is presented. The waves considered are assumed to be generated by moving a piston in a two-dimensional channel, and may appear, for example, in the injection chamber of a high-pressure die casting machine under operating conditions far from the optimal. A numerical model based on a finite-difference discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations in a Cartesian grid and a second-order approximate projection method has been developed and used to carry out the simulations. The evolution of the free surface is described using a level set method, with a reinitialization procedure of the level set function which uses a local grid refinement near the free surface. The ability of different algorithms to improve mass conservation in the reinitialization step of the level set function has been tested in a time-reversed single vortex flow. The results for the breaking wave profiles show the flow characteristics after the impact of the first plunging jet onto the wave’s forward face and during the subsequent splash-up.


Author(s):  
M. Farzad ◽  
J. Yagoobi

Abstract Slot jet reattachment (SJR) nozzle is developed in an attempt to enhance heat and mass transfer characteristics while effectively controlling the impingement surface force exerted by the jet flow. In the SJR nozzle, the jet is directed outward from the nozzle exit and it then reattaches on an adjacent surface in its vicinity. The turbulent mixing occurs at the boundaries of the free stream induces secondary flow by mass entrainment and causes the flow to reattach the surface in the form of an oval reattachment at close nozzle to surface spacing [1]. All the previous studies had considered a stationary reattachment surface. This paper, for the first time, investigates the impact of reattachment surface movement on the flow structure of SJR nozzle with three different exit angles of +45°, +20°, and +10°. Specifically, this numerical study is carried out by varying the surface-to-jet velocity ratio (u* = up/ue) from 0 to 1.5 and comparing of flow reattachment flow fields to those of a regular slot jet (SJ) nozzle, where up is the speed of reattachment surface (moving plate) and ue is the jet exit velocity. In this study, jet exit temperature is kept constant at the room temperature of 20°C and all comparisons were performed at the same Reynolds number of 7,900. Additionally, the effect of SJR air exit angle on the peak surface pressure is investigated.


Author(s):  
Stéphane Etienne ◽  
Yves-Marie Scolan ◽  
Laurent Brosset

The influence of the gas-to-liquid density ratio (DR) on the global wave shape before impact is studied through numerical simulations of the propagation of two different waves in a rectangular wave canal. Two different codes are used: the first one, named FSID, is a highly non-linear 2D bi-fluid potential code initially developed in the frame of SLOSHEL JIP (Kaminski et al. (2011)) to simulate incompressible inviscid free-surface flows without surface tension thanks to a desingularized technique and series of conformal mappings; the second one, named CADYF, is a bi-fluid high-fidelity front-tracking software developed by Ecole Polytechnique Montreal to simulate separated two-phase incompressible viscous flows with surface tension. The first studied wave leads to a flip-through impact while the second one leads to a large gas-pocket impact. Each condition is studied with water and three different gases with increasing densities corresponding to DR = 0.001, 0.003 and 0.005. The global wave shapes are compared a few tenths of second before the impact, before free surface instabilities triggered by the shearing gas flow have developed and also before any gas compressibility matters. Both codes give precisely the same global wave shapes. Whatever the condition studied, it is shown that DR has an influence on these global wave shapes. The trends observed from the simulations are the same as those described in Karimi et al. (2016) obtained from sloshing model tests with Single Impact Waves (SIW) in a 2D tank with a low filling level. A small part of the mechanical energy of the liquid is progressively given to the gas. The larger the DR, the larger this transfer of energy from the liquid to the gas. This explains an increasing delay of the wave front for increasing DRs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 653-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Yari ◽  
H. Ghassemi

AbstractThis article is presented the surface tension effect on the two-dimensional blade section of the partially submerged propeller (PSP). In this regard, blade is entered to the water that causes to splash the water due to the impact and free surface. Also, because of the blade's angle of attack suction side is vented by air and pressure side is wetted and gripped the water to generate thrust. The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method is used in order to predict the hydrodynamic flow from entering to the exit. Present paper is numerically investigated the effect of free surface and surface tension i.e. related to the Weber number. So, many numerical results are presented and discussed that are included volume fraction, ventilation zones, pressure distributions, vertical and horizontal forces at various Weber numbers.


2011 ◽  
Vol 130-134 ◽  
pp. 3628-3631
Author(s):  
L.P. He ◽  
Z.Y. Xia

Dynamic atomization processes of non-Newtonian liquid were investigated by the method of numerical simulation. The full transient process of the primary instability, deformation, and fragmentation of free surface were simulated numerically by solving the Navier-Stokes equations using an algorithm based on the finite volume method. The tracking of the free surface was achieved using the volume of fluid (VOF) technique and the geometric reconstruction was based on the technique of Piecewise-Linear Interface Construction (PLIC). The continuum surface force (CSF) method was used to model surface tension. In this paper, atomization characteristics of non-Newtonian liquid were analyzed detailedly. The distribution of dimensionless potential length against time was obtained, and the dimensionless wavelength of primary waves was investigated.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174425912098418
Author(s):  
Toivo Säwén ◽  
Martina Stockhaus ◽  
Carl-Eric Hagentoft ◽  
Nora Schjøth Bunkholt ◽  
Paula Wahlgren

Timber roof constructions are commonly ventilated through an air cavity beneath the roof sheathing in order to remove heat and moisture from the construction. The driving forces for this ventilation are wind pressure and thermal buoyancy. The wind driven ventilation has been studied extensively, while models for predicting buoyant flow are less developed. In the present study, a novel analytical model is presented to predict the air flow caused by thermal buoyancy in a ventilated roof construction. The model provides means to calculate the cavity Rayleigh number for the roof construction, which is then correlated with the air flow rate. The model predictions are compared to the results of an experimental and a numerical study examining the effect of different cavity designs and inclinations on the air flow rate in a ventilated roof subjected to varying heat loads. Over 80 different test set-ups, the analytical model was found to replicate both experimental and numerical results within an acceptable margin. The effect of an increased total roof height, air cavity height and solar heat load for a given construction is an increased air flow rate through the air cavity. On average, the analytical model predicts a 3% higher air flow rate than found in the numerical study, and a 20% lower air flow rate than found in the experimental study, for comparable test set-ups. The model provided can be used to predict the air flow rate in cavities of varying design, and to quantify the impact of suggested roof design changes. The result can be used as a basis for estimating the moisture safety of a roof construction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4251
Author(s):  
Jinsong Zhang ◽  
Shuai Zhang ◽  
Jianhua Zhang ◽  
Zhiliang Wang

In the digital microfluidic experiments, the droplet characteristics and flow patterns are generally identified and predicted by the empirical methods, which are difficult to process a large amount of data mining. In addition, due to the existence of inevitable human invention, the inconsistent judgment standards make the comparison between different experiments cumbersome and almost impossible. In this paper, we tried to use machine learning to build algorithms that could automatically identify, judge, and predict flow patterns and droplet characteristics, so that the empirical judgment was transferred to be an intelligent process. The difference on the usual machine learning algorithms, a generalized variable system was introduced to describe the different geometry configurations of the digital microfluidics. Specifically, Buckingham’s theorem had been adopted to obtain multiple groups of dimensionless numbers as the input variables of machine learning algorithms. Through the verification of the algorithms, the SVM and BPNN algorithms had classified and predicted the different flow patterns and droplet characteristics (the length and frequency) successfully. By comparing with the primitive parameters system, the dimensionless numbers system was superior in the predictive capability. The traditional dimensionless numbers selected for the machine learning algorithms should have physical meanings strongly rather than mathematical meanings. The machine learning algorithms applying the dimensionless numbers had declined the dimensionality of the system and the amount of computation and not lose the information of primitive parameters.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1425
Author(s):  
Tarek Bouzennada ◽  
Farid Mechighel ◽  
Kaouther Ghachem ◽  
Lioua Kolsi

A 2D-symmetric numerical study of a new design of Nano-Enhanced Phase change material (NEPCM)-filled enclosure is presented in this paper. The enclosure is equipped with an inner tube allowing the circulation of the heat transfer fluid (HTF); n-Octadecane is chosen as phase change material (PCM). Comsol-Multiphysics commercial code was used to solve the governing equations. This study has been performed to examine the heat distribution and melting rate under the influence of the inner-tube position and the concentration of the nanoparticles dispersed in the PCM. The inner tube was located at three different vertical positions and the nanoparticle concentration was varied from 0 to 0.06. The results revealed that both heat transfer/melting rates are improved when the inner tube is located at the bottom region of the enclosure and by increasing the concentration of the nanoparticles. The addition of the nanoparticles enhances the heat transfer due to the considerable increase in conductivity. On the other hand, by placing the tube in the bottom area of the enclosure, the liquid PCM gets a wider space, allowing the intensification of the natural convection.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Yanhong Chen

ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the optimal reinsurance contracts that minimize the convex combination of the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) of the insurer’s loss and the reinsurer’s loss over the class of ceded loss functions such that the retained loss function is increasing and the ceded loss function satisfies Vajda condition. Among a general class of reinsurance premium principles that satisfy the properties of risk loading and convex order preserving, the optimal solutions are obtained. Our results show that the optimal ceded loss functions are in the form of five interconnected segments for general reinsurance premium principles, and they can be further simplified to four interconnected segments if more properties are added to reinsurance premium principles. Finally, we derive optimal parameters for the expected value premium principle and give a numerical study to analyze the impact of the weighting factor on the optimal reinsurance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 168781402110094
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Elnasri ◽  
Han Zhao

In this study, we numerically investigate the impact perforation of sandwich panels made of 0.8 mm 2024-T3 aluminum alloy skin sheets and graded polymeric hollow sphere cores with four different gradient profiles. A suitable numerical model was conducted using the LS-DYNA code, calibrated with an inverse perforation test, instrumented with a Hopkinson bar, and validated using experimental data from the literature. Moreover, the effects of quasi-static loading, landing rates, and boundary conditions on the perforation resistance of the studied graded core sandwich panels were discussed. The simulation results showed that the piercing force–displacement response of the graded core sandwich panels is affected by the core density gradient profiles. Besides, the energy absorption capability can be effectively enhanced by modifying the arrangement of the core layers with unclumping boundary conditions in the graded core sandwich panel, which is rather too hard to achieve with clumping boundary conditions.


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