Numerical investigation of the moving liquid column coalescing with a droplet in triangular microchannels using CLSVOF method

Abstract

The dynamic behavior of the moving liquid column coalescing with a sessile droplet in triangular microchannels is numerically investigated by using coupled volume of fluid with level set interface tracking method implemented in ANSYS Fluent 14.5 in conjunction with the continuum surface force model. It is found that for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic microchannels, the coalescence between the moving liquid column and droplet can accelerate the original liquid column movement as a result of the induced curvature that lowers the liquid pressure at the interface. As compared to the rectangular microchannel with the same hydraulic diameter, the triangular microchannel exhibits smaller velocity increment ratio because of stronger viscous effect. Simulation results also reveal that the velocity increment ratio increases with the contact angle in hydrophobic microchannels, but it is reverse in the hydrophilic microchannels. The effects of the droplet size, lengthways and transverse positions are also investigated in this work. It is shown that larger droplet and smaller distance between the droplet and inlet or the substrate center can result in larger velocity increment ratio as a result of higher surface energy and lower viscous dissipation energy, respectively. The results obtained in this study create a solid theoretical foundation for designing and optimizing microfluidic devices encountering such a typical phenomenon.