Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, we numerically determined the performance of a microscale separator comprising a lateral and a main channel to separate a two-phase flow. It was aimed to conduct continuous phase through the lateral channel and dispersed phase through the main channel. The continuous and dispersed phases were modeled as incompressible Newtonian fluids with the corresponding interface tracked by the phase-field model. The dynamics, including pressure fluctuations in the separator, were further examined. It was mechanistically demonstrated how the geometry of the separator modulates the phase separation. Further examined were the influences of various geometrical parameters on the performance of... 

Since the discovery of inertial focusing in 1961, numerous theories have been put forward to explain the migration of particles in inertial flows, but a complete understanding is still lacking. Recently, computational approaches have been utilized to obtain better insights into the underlying physics. In particular, fundamental aspects of particle focusing inside straight and curved microchannels have been explored in detail to determine the dependence of focusing behavior on particle size, channel shape, and flow Reynolds number. In this review, we differentiate between the models developed for inertial particle motion on the basis of whether they are semi-analytical, Navier-Stokes-based,... 

In this study, the dynamics of the accelerated and steady-state motion of a single bubble in a quiescent highly viscous Newtonian liquid was investigated theoretically and experimentally. The presented mathematical model was based on Newton's second law of motion and a balance of buoyancy, drag, history, and added-mass forces. Due to the presence of non-linear terms in the equation of motion, homotopy perturbation method was used as a powerful analytical method to calculate the velocity analytically. To obtain accurate results in the experiments, a high-speed camera was used to record the bubble motion from the moment of detachment to the time at which the terminal velocity is reached.... 

Magnetorheological fluids (MRFs) are a category of functional materials that exhibit magneto-mechanical coupling. These materials exhibit a reversible and instantaneous change from a free-flowing Newtonian fluid to a semi-solid state upon application of a magnetic field. In contrast to ordinary fluids, MRFs can tolerate shear stresses up to a yield value in the presence of a magnetic field. The yield stress strongly depends on intensity of the applied magnetic field and volume fraction of magnetic particles. As the yield stress is the most important parameter of an MRF and must be considered in the design of MR devices, in this work, effects of magnetic field and volume fraction of particles... 

Body force modeling is studied in the Generalized Newtonian (GN) fluid flow simulation using a single relaxation time lattice Boltzmann (LB) method. First, in a shear thickening Poiseuille flow, the necessity for studying body force modeling in the LB method is explained. Then, a parametric unified framework is constructed for the first time which is composed of a parametric LB model and its associated macroscopic dual equations in both steady state and transient simulations. This unified framework is used to compare the macroscopic behavior of different forcing models. Besides, using this unified framework, a new forcing model for steady state simulations is devised. Finally, by solving a... 

Mixing in droplets is an essential task in a variety of microfluidic systems. Inspired by electrokinetic mixing, electric field-induced hydrodynamic flow inside a charged droplet embedded in an unbounded polyelectrolyte hydrogel is investigated theoretically. In this study, the polyelectrolyte hydrogel is modeled as a soft, and electrically charged porous solid saturated with a salted Newtonian fluid, and the droplet is considered an incompressible Newtonian fluid. The droplet-hydrogel interface is modeled as a surface, which is located at the plane of shear, with the electrostatic potential ζ. The fluid inside the droplet attains a finite velocity owing to hydrodynamic coupling with the... 

The biomicrofluidic devices utilizing electrophoresis for sample manipulation are usually encountered with non-Newtonian behavior of working fluids. Hence, developing theoretical models capable of predicting the electrophoretic velocity of colloidal particles in non-Newtonian fluids is of high importance for accurate design and active control of these devices. The present investigation is dealing with the electrophoresis of a spherical particle in a biofluid obeying the Quemada rheological model. The sphere radius is considered to be significantly larger than the Debye length. Moreover, it is assumed that the particle zeta potential is small so that the Debye-Hückel linearization is... 

The influence of variable fluid properties on mixed electroosmotic and pressure driven flow of non-Newtonian fluids is investigated in this paper. The non-linear coupled energy and momentum equations are solved by means of an iterative numerical approach. The results reveal that the temperature dependent effects only become significant at very high values of the Debye-Hückel parameter in case of combined electroosmotic and pressure driven flow and could safely be neglected in other cases. It is observed that the physical properties variation lead to a higher mean velocity in case of pressure assisted flow and a lower mean velocity in case of pressure opposed flow. Furthermore, the... 

Both nonlinear rheology and finite EDL thickness effects on the mixing process in an electroosmotically actuated Y-sensor are being investigated in this paper, utilizing a depthwise averaging method based on the Taylor dispersion theory. The fluid rheological behavior is assumed to obey the power-law viscosity model. Analytical solutions are obtained assuming a large channel width to depth ratio for which a 1-D profile can efficiently describe the velocity distribution. Full numerical simulations are also performed to determine the applicability range of the analytical model, revealing that it is able to provide accurate results for channel aspect ratios of ten and higher and quite... 

Some of electrokinetic-based biomicrofluidic devices work at zeta potentials that are sufficiently high for ionic size (steric) effects to show up. In the present effort, consideration is given to the steric effects on the hydrodynamics of electroosmotic flow in a rectangular microchannel. The distinction between this research and the previous ones is that we account for non-linear rheology of the fluids encountered in biomicrofluidic systems by means of the power-law viscosity model. The method of analysis consists of a finite-difference-based numerical procedure for a non-uniform distribution of grid points, which is applied to the dimensionless form of the governing equations including... 

Consideration is given to shear-rate-dependent rheology effects on mass transport in a heterogeneous microreactor of rectangular cross section, utilizing both numerical and analytical approaches. The carrier liquid obeys the power-law viscosity model and is actuated primarily by an electrokinetic pumping mechanism. It is discovered that, considering the shear-thinning biofluids to be Newtonian fluids gives rise to an overestimation of the saturation time. The degree of overestimation is higher in the presence of large Damkohler numbers and electric double layer thicknesses. It is also increased by the application of a favorable pressure gradient, whereas the opposite is true when an opposed... 

Hydrodynamically fully developed flow of power-law fluids under combined action of electroosmotic and pressure gradient forces in rectangular microreactors is analyzed considering heterogeneous catalytic reactions. The Poisson-Boltzmann, Cauchy momentum, and concentration equations are considered in two dimensions and after being dimensionless are numerically solved applying a finite difference algorithm. Variation of axial concentration gradient, and axial and horizontal mass diffusions are taken into account as well. To accomplish a more general analysis, the velocity distribution is obtained by solving continuity and Cauchy momentum equations and is not considered as an average axial... 

The present study, deals with a new mixing technique using a two-phase electrode array, which is charged with alternating current (AC) signals, located in specific parts of the geometry. This significantly contributes to a chaotic mixing mechanism using a low amplitude AC voltage within a micro-channel. Study analysis demonstrates that the optimization of the effective parameters such as geometrical features, voltage amplitude, fluid inlet velocity, AC frequency and phase lag for a defined fluid can lead to an optimum and highly efficient mixer by considerably increasing disturbances in a primary highly ordered laminar flow. Three different geometries of micro mixer are studied; one-ring... 

Characterization of droplet-hydrogel interfaces is of crucial importance to engineer droplet-hydrogel composites for a variety of applications. In order to develop electrokinetic diagnostic tools for probing droplet-hydrogel interfaces, the displacement of a charged droplet embedded in a polyelectrolyte hydrogel exposed to an oscillating electric field is determined theoretically. The polyelectrolyte hydrogel is modeled as an incompressible, charged, porous, and elastic solid saturated with a salted Newtonian fluid. The droplet is considered an incompressible Newtonian fluid with no charges within the droplet. The droplet-hydrogel interface is modeled as a surface with the thickness of zero... 

The effect of a permanent magnetic field on the heat transfer characteristics of hybrid graphene-magnetite nanofluids (hybrid nanofluid) under forced laminar flow was experimentally investigated. For this purpose, a reduced graphene oxide-Fe3O4 was synthesized by using two-dimensional (2D) graphene oxide, iron salts and tannic acid as the reductant and stabilizer. Graphene sheets acted as the supporting materials to enhance the stability and thermal properties of magnetite nanoparticles. The thermo-physical and magnetic properties of this hybrid nanofluid have been widely characterized and it shows that the thermal conductivity increased up to 11%. The hybrid nanofluid behaves as a Newtonian... 

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) was applied to simulate the free falling of cylindrical bodies in three types of fluids including Newtonian, generalized-Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids. Renormalized derivation schemes were used because of their consistency in combination with the latest version of no slip boundary condition to improve the handling of moving fluid-structure interactions (FSIs). Verification of the method was performed through comparing the results of some benchmark examples for both single and two phase flows with the literature. The effects of some parameters such as the viscosity of the Newtonian fluid, the n index of the power-law fluid and the relaxation time of... 

The formation of water drops as a Newtonian fluid and formation of a shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluid, Carboxyl Methyl Cellulose (CMC) from a capillary into different bulk fluids are experimentally investigated. A high speed camera is used to visualize the images of the drops and an image-processing code employed to determine the drop properties from each image. It was found that the properties of the water drops when they are drooped into the liquids bulk fluids such as toluene and n-hexane are almost the same while they differed substantially when they were drooped into the air bulk fluid. It is shown that during the formation of water drop in all three kinds of bulk fluids, the drop... 

This paper presents a comprehensive 3D numerical simulation of reacting flows in micro scale dimension through centrifugal, or Lab-On-a-CD (LOCD), and pressure-driven, or Lab-On-a-Chip (LOC) devices. Three different serpentine channel configurations (rectangular, triangular and sinusoidal) are investigated. In these configurations, two chemical species enter from two inlets and according to an irreversible chemical reaction, start yielding other species. Both Newtonian and generalized Newtonian fluids are considered in the simulations and the results are compared for both LOC and LOCD devices. Besides, the effects of different parameters such as the aspect ratio of channels’ cross section,... 

A direct numerical simulation approach is utilized to understand the oscillatory shear rheology of a confined suspension of magnetic chains formed by paramagnetic circular cylinders under the influence of an external magnetic field. The common assumption of gap-spanning chains made in the literature is relaxed in this work, so that a fully suspended (periodic) array of magnetic chains is formed. In this sense, the effective rheological parameters are only influenced through a layer of fluid adjacent to the walls. All tests are conducted at very low but finite particle Reynolds numbers, and typical inertial effects are discussed. The main aim of the present study is to investigate the... 

Using hydrophobic surfaces is one of the efficient methods to preserve energy in fluid transfer systems. However, the studies have been concentrated on Newtonian fluids despite the wide applications of non-Newtonian fluids in daily life and many industries such as the biological, foodstuff, chemical, petroleum, cosmetic, and lab on a chip fields. In this study, we consider power-law fluids as a typical example of non-Newtonian fluids and investigate the effect of hydrophobic microgrooves on the pressure drop in channels by utilizing the phase field method. We demonstrate that the optimum size of the rectangular microgrooves in which the maximum pressure drop reduction (PDR) happens for both...