A numerical method for two-phase flow in micro channels and its application to droplet control by electrowetting on dielectric

Abstract

With the development of micro chemical and medical analysis in MEMS, micro-fluid-control chip becomes more and more popular. Based on discrete droplet control system, chemical and medical analysis is applied in the micro chip lab. The change of voltage between the dielectric layer of the electrode controls the wettability of a droplet on a dielectric solid surface and then makes it possible to create,transport,merge and cut the micro droplets. This paper presents a numerical method to simulate the droplet motion by electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD). The second-order projection method is carried out to solve N-S equations and level set function. The interface is captured as zero level set. Dynamic contact angle for fluid contacting a solid surface by the electric potential is used to evaluate the wettability of fluid by EWOD. The numerical scheme is based on staggered MAC grid. Numerical simulations are used to capture the interface between two kinds of fluids in micro channels, the shapes of micro droplets resting on the horizontal solid surface under different electric potential and the transportation of a micro droplet in a parallel-plate channel when electrodes are activated.