Cargando…

Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study

A microfluidic device, or a Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC), performs lab operations on the microscale through the manipulation of fluids. The design and fabrication of such devices usually is a tedious process, and auxiliary tools, such as simulators, can alleviate the necessary effort for the design process....

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Takken, Michel, Wille, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9321135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891071
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22145392
_version_ 1784755964301279232
author Takken, Michel
Wille, Robert
author_facet Takken, Michel
Wille, Robert
author_sort Takken, Michel
collection PubMed
description A microfluidic device, or a Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC), performs lab operations on the microscale through the manipulation of fluids. The design and fabrication of such devices usually is a tedious process, and auxiliary tools, such as simulators, can alleviate the necessary effort for the design process. Simulations of fluids exist in various forms and can be categorized according to how well they represent the underlying physics, into so-called abstraction levels. In this work, we consider simulation approaches in 1D, which are based on analytical solutions of simplified problems, and approaches in 2D and 3D, for which we use two different Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods—namely, the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and the Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM). All these methods come with their pros and cons with respect to accuracy and required compute time, but unfortunately, most designers and researchers are not aware of the trade-off that can be made within the broad spectrum of available simulation approaches for microfluidics and end up choosing a simulation approach arbitrarily. We provide an overview of different simulation approaches as well as a case study of their performance to aid designers and researchers in their choice. To this end, we consider three representative use cases of pressure-driven and channel-based microfluidic devices (namely the non-Newtonian flow in a channel, the mixing of two fluids in a channel, and the behavior of droplets in channels). The considerations and evaluations raise the awareness and provide several insights for what simulation approaches can be utilized today when designing corresponding devices (and for what they cannot be utilized yet).
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9321135
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-93211352022-07-27 Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study Takken, Michel Wille, Robert Sensors (Basel) Article A microfluidic device, or a Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC), performs lab operations on the microscale through the manipulation of fluids. The design and fabrication of such devices usually is a tedious process, and auxiliary tools, such as simulators, can alleviate the necessary effort for the design process. Simulations of fluids exist in various forms and can be categorized according to how well they represent the underlying physics, into so-called abstraction levels. In this work, we consider simulation approaches in 1D, which are based on analytical solutions of simplified problems, and approaches in 2D and 3D, for which we use two different Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods—namely, the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and the Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM). All these methods come with their pros and cons with respect to accuracy and required compute time, but unfortunately, most designers and researchers are not aware of the trade-off that can be made within the broad spectrum of available simulation approaches for microfluidics and end up choosing a simulation approach arbitrarily. We provide an overview of different simulation approaches as well as a case study of their performance to aid designers and researchers in their choice. To this end, we consider three representative use cases of pressure-driven and channel-based microfluidic devices (namely the non-Newtonian flow in a channel, the mixing of two fluids in a channel, and the behavior of droplets in channels). The considerations and evaluations raise the awareness and provide several insights for what simulation approaches can be utilized today when designing corresponding devices (and for what they cannot be utilized yet). MDPI 2022-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9321135/ /pubmed/35891071 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22145392 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Takken, Michel
Wille, Robert
Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title_full Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title_fullStr Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title_full_unstemmed Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title_short Simulation of Pressure-Driven and Channel-Based Microfluidics on Different Abstract Levels: A Case Study
title_sort simulation of pressure-driven and channel-based microfluidics on different abstract levels: a case study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9321135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891071
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22145392
work_keys_str_mv AT takkenmichel simulationofpressuredrivenandchannelbasedmicrofluidicsondifferentabstractlevelsacasestudy
AT willerobert simulationofpressuredrivenandchannelbasedmicrofluidicsondifferentabstractlevelsacasestudy