Abstract
The steady streaming (SS) phenomenon is gaining increased attention in the microfluidics community, because it can generate net mass flow from zero-mean vibration. We developed numerical simulation and experimental measurement tools to analyze this vibration-induced flow, which has been challenging due to its unsteady nature. The validity of these analysis methods is confirmed by comparing the three-dimensional (3D) flow field and the resulting particle trajectories induced around a cylindrical micro-pillar under circular vibration. In the numerical modeling, we directly solved the flow in the Lagrangian frame so that the substrate with a micro-pillar becomes stationary, and the results were converted to a stationary Eulerian frame to compare with the experimental results. The present approach enables us to avoid the introduction of a moving boundary or infinitesimal perturbation approximation. The flow field obtained by the micron-resolution particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) measurement supported the three-dimensionality observed in the numerical results, which could be important for controlling the mass transport and manipulating particulate objects in microfluidic systems.
Highlights
The hydrodynamic phenomenon known as steady streaming (SS) is gaining increased attention for controlling flows and associated transport and mixing of chemical species as well as micro objects such as functionalized particles and cells in microfluidic devices [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
In the present numerical simulation, a 3D instantaneous flow field around the pillar was obtained after converting the results in the moving coordinate to the stationary one
We developed a simulation tool to predict the SS flow induced by vibration without assuming 2D flow and small vibration amplitude
Summary
The hydrodynamic phenomenon known as steady streaming (SS) is gaining increased attention for controlling flows and associated transport and mixing of chemical species as well as micro objects such as functionalized particles and cells in microfluidic devices [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] This term represents the time-averaged non-zero mean flow induced by relative periodic oscillation with zero mean between the substrate and the adjacent bulk fluid. Because it requires no net displacement or a pressure gradient to drive the flow, the SS is expected to simplify and miniaturize microfluidic systems without introducing external pumps or tubing
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