Multiple independent autonomous hydraulic oscillators driven by a common gravity head

Self-switching microfluidic circuits that are able to perform biochemical experiments in a parallel and autonomous manner similar to instruction-embedded electronics, are rarely implemented. Here, we present design principles and demonstrations for gravity-driven, integrated, microfluidic pulsatile flow circuits. With a common gravity-head as the only driving force, these fluidic oscillator arrays realize a wide range of periods (0.4 s – 2 h) and flow rates (0.10 – 63 μL min(−1)) with completely independent timing between the multiple oscillator sub-circuits connected in parallel. As a model application, we perform systematic, parallel analysis of endothelial cell elongation response to different fluidic shearing patterns generated by the autonomous microfluidic pulsed flow generation system.