Sharif Digital Repository

This research concerns investigating the behavior of two-phase flow in the inlet and outlet of the microchannels.Both the droplet based and the continuous microfluidics are considered. For the continuous system whenthe minor fluid enters the microchannel, due to ratio of viscosity of two fluids, viscous folding occurs.Viscous folding phenomena is similar to the buckling phenomena in solids.This means that the viscosity of the fluid, which is applied to two sides of the fluid layer, causes folding the fluid layer and changing the shape of it. For the study we employ a VOF based numerical routine. In order to verify numerical results, the grid and the time step independenciesare checked. In... 

The present study provids an experimental investigation on two-pase flow characteristics in microchannels. Experiment were conducted with a mixture of air and water in horizontal circular pyrex channel with 400µm inner diameter. The pressure drop and flow rates of the liquid and gas were measured using new method and images of the flow patterns recorded by high shutter speed camera. The gas and liquid superficial velocity ranges were 0.025-12.5m/s and 0.016-3.6m/s, respectively. The flow pattern map is developed from the observed flow patterns based on phases superficial velocity as wel as We numbers of liquid and gas phases. The flow pattern map is compared with those of larger channels.... 

Understanding the hydrodynamic and physical chemistry basis of surface phenomena is very important for many branches of basic science like Chemical Engineering, Mechanics, Space Engineering, and Material Engineering in the level of fundamental studies and applications. In addition to the common technologies, the role of surface phenomena in novel technologies is also very essential. For example, nanotechnology, chemical or physical sensors, or micro electrical systems in which surface phenomena is playing a main role. Therefore, understanding the basis of surface science is very important for any development in many industrial and fundamental studies. The main topic of this thesis which is a... 

In this article, the problem of mixed convection in vertical rectangular microchannels for both regular fluids and nanofluids have been solved, using the CFD technique in the entrance regions of momentum and heat transfer taking in account the influences of viscous heating, inertial force and sleep conditions. In case of nanofluid flow, both the Brownian and thermophoresis molecular transfer mechanisms were considered.The predicted results were validated using fully developed distributions of velocity and temperature. Furthermore, the influences of mixed convection parameter (Gr/Re) and Kn number values on distributions of velocity and temperature through the entrance and fully-developed... 

Nowadays, cancer, which has been mentioned as the disease of the century, is the second leading cause of death throughout the world, and its incidence is constantly increasing. Isolation of circulating tumor cells is one of the most critical steps in diagnosing and controlling cancer progression. Due to the rarity of cancer cells compared to other cells in the blood sample, the isolation process requires optimal and high-precision devices. With the advent of inertial microfluidics, the ability to control the particles movement, the processing of blood samples as quickly and accurately as possible, and the viability of cells with a high percentage, introduced microfluidic systems as a... 

The microfluidic fuel cell or laminar flow-based fuel cell is a membrane-less fuel cell which typically consists of two electrodes mounted within a T- or Y-shaped microchannel. Aqueous fuel and oxidant are introduced from the two inlets of the channel and flow together side-by-side toward the end of the channel. The Reynolds number in the microchannel is low, and hence viscous forces are dominant over the inertial forces. This causes the anolyte and catholyte form a co-laminar flow inside the microchannel which is required to maintain the separation of the fuel and oxidant and limit the reactions to the appropriate electrodes. In this work, a comprehensive numerical model of the microfluidic... 

With the rapid development of mico-nano propulsion systems in micro-spacecrafts and micro-sattelites, precise investigation of flow field in these devices has become necessary. Micro propulsion systems usually have a thrust in order of mili Newton, and they can be used for maneuvers of spacecrafts with mass of less than 10 kg. Micro propulsion systems are usually classified according to their thrust generation mechanism to different classes like cold gas, and chemical propulsion systems. Cold gas micro propulsion systems obtain their energy from thermodynamic expansion of gas and not by combustion. If the flow fiel dimensionare comparable to mean free path, rarefaction effects are observed... 

In medical science, preparing a high purity sample of certain kinds of cells plays an important role in studying the characteristics and functionality of cells, detecting in vitro harmful pathogens and helping to find ways of preventing and treating diseases that cause cellular disorders in the human body. The goal of this research is to improve the spiral microchannel with stair-like cross section in order to separate white blood cells from whole blood. First, the efficiency of this method was evaluated numerically, using a developed finite element model. Then, the desired microchannel mold was made using the micromiling method, and we fabricated the chip using soft lithography and pasting... 

In the present work, the possibility of using a cross flow microchannel heat exchanger in cryogenic service for natural gas liquefaction has been numerically investigated using 3D computational fluid dynamics approach. Microchannels of rectangular and triangular cross section with a hydraulic diameter of 0.667 and 0.472 mm respectively have been constructed in Gambit and Fluent is used as the solver of numerical simulations.For solver’s equations validation, the existing experimental data on flow of water through rectangular microchannels has been modeled by CFD. Comparison of CFD results with experimental data shows a good agreement.Both models are constructed of three distinct layers. In... 

Building complex and functional tissues and organs is very challenging. One of the challenges is building an efficient network of blood vessels that can be used to facilitate the transport of nutrients and oxygen to the host. In addition to using channels for oxygen supply, another solution is to use oxygen-carrying materials. In this study, in addition to designing and simulating scaffolds with multi-scale microchannels, calcium peroxide was used to release oxygen and eliminate hypoxia in the scaffold. Here alginate is used as the main material for scaffolding. In an attempt to build a scaffold using a bio-printer, pluronic acid was also used as a sacrificial material to create canals.... 

It is aimed in this study to numerically investigate the effect of contact angle on the heat transfer coefficient in oil-water two-phase flow. For this purpose, the finite element method (FEM) is used to solve the unsteady Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The level set method is also used to capture the interface between the phases. In the first part of the study, two-phase flow of the water and calibration oil is considered in a T-junction geometry at contact angles of 5°, 40°, and 75°. It is observed that the flow patterns formed in the microchannel depend on the initial flow condition which results in the hysteresis phenomenon. Investigating the effect of wall contact angle on the... 

In the present study, a high-order accurate numerical solution of steady incompressible slip flow and heat transfer in 2D microchannels is presented. The numerical method used is an alternating direction implicit operator scheme which is efficiently implemented to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in the primitive variables formulation using the artificial compressibility method. To stabilize the numerical solution, numerical filters are used. The present methodology considers the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations with¬ employing different slip boundary condition¬¬ (Maxwell,¬ ¬¬Hyperbolic tangent function of Knudsen number¬ and Beskok slip models)¬ ¬¬on the wall to model... 

The present study examines both Direct Current (DC) and Alternating Current (AC) electroosmotic flows in a parallel plate microchannel. The method consists of a central finite difference scheme for spatial terms and a forward difference scheme for the temporal term. Asymmetric boundary conditions are assumed for Poison-Boltzmann equation used to determine the electric double layer (EDL) potential distribution. The potential distribution is then used to evaluate the velocity distribution for both DC and AC electroosmotic flows. The velocity distributions are obtained by applying slip boundary conditions on the walls to account for probable hydrophobicity of the surfaces. After determining the... 

Particle separation has a variety of applications in biology, chemistry and industry. Among them, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) separation has drawn significant attention to itself due to its high impact on both cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. In recent years, there has been growing interest in using inertial microfluidics to separate micro/nano particles based on their sizes. This technique offers label-free, high throughput, and efficient separation and can be easily fabricated. However, further improvements are needed for potential clinical applications. In this study, a novel inertial separation technique using spiral microchannel with stair-like cross section is introduced. The... 

The purpose of this research is the synthesis of nanoparticles using micro fluid glass.The microfluidic glassy building is studied. Glass microfluidic microchannels making hydrophobic the continuing experiments carried out so that the water droplets in the organic phase and at the end of nanoparticles should be synthesized. Tests hydrophobic microchannels and water droplets in the organic phase was formed. In order to ensure an escape water contact angle and FTIR micro-channel test is taken and to avoid the droplets merged with each of surfactant SDS was used. In the end, DLS and FESEM nanoparticles synthesized using the tests have been evaluated and the concentrations of reactants and flow... 

EOR (oil enhanced recovery) is very important as oil is a nonrenewable resource. Depending on the characteristics of the rock formation, primary production can result in the recovery of up to 20% of the oil originally in the rock. This means that at least 80% of the oil may remain in the rock unless additional technology is used to increase the recovery. Before finding best way to do for EOR, scientists must study properties of different porous media that oil is trapped between its grains. Most of research and studies investigate networks of porous media but this work focused on oil movement through a pore space in porous media lonely not in network by waterflooding. Studying a pore space is... 

In recent years, desulfurization has received much attention due to its devastating environmental effects. The existence of sulfur compounds has effects such as corrosion, poisoning of catalysts, reduction of heat of combustion and reduction of price. Sulfur compounds in hydrocarbon fuels also produce sulfur oxides caused by combustion then they enter the atmosphere, and cause acid rain. Acid rain dissolves building materials, poisons lakes, and destroys forests. Therefore, removing sulfur or converting it to less harmful substances is one of the most important processes in refineries. The method studied in this research is the use of adsorption desulfurization method by microchannel which... 

In this project, two Ferrofluidic micropumps that do not need any mechanical moving parts are presented. These micropumps are including simple microchannels containing magnetic fluid plugs that are used as flow actuator and the on/off valve. Using external magnetic field actuation in this type of micropumps, the magnetic fluid would have continuous motion in a channel with micrometer dimensions that would provide the main fluid to be pumped. Although the plug of magnetic fluid has surface contact with operative fluid, but considering its specific features, it would not compine with the pumping fluid. These micropumps may be used to pump the fluids or gases. The outcomes of the investigation... 

This thesis presents the prototype design and fabrication of magnetically actuated miniature pumps which utilize self-sealing capability of ferrofluid-covered permanent magnets in both pumping and valving mechanisms. The contactless external actuation feature of the design enables integration of the pump with other PMMA-based microfluidic systems with low cost and disposability. The body of the 1st fabricated prototype pump consists of three nozzle/diffuser elements and two pumping chambers connected to the ends of a flat-wall pumping cylinder. A cylindrical permanent magnet placed inside the pumping cylinder acts as a piston which reciprocates by using an external magnetic actuator driven... 

The integrated development of small-scale electronic and mechanical systems has drawn attention, since they lead to increase in speed and decrease in volume of industry dimensions in the manufacturing sector. That is why microelectromechanical systems are highly considered. MEMS are widely used in Microfluidic systems that can be used in medicine, biology and drug injection. Due to the fact that consistent fluid velocity is necessary in biological applications, electroosmotic flow is more important than ever. To investigate the behavior of biofluids, Newtonian models cannot be used and it is required to use models that predict the behavior of these fluids accurately. In this research...