Numerical simulation of surface acoustic wave actuated cell sorting

We consider the mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of high throughput sorting of two different types of biological cells (type I and type II) by a biomedical micro-electro-mechanical system (BioMEMS) whose operating behavior relies on surface acoustic wave (SAW) manipulated fluid flow in a microchannel. The BioMEMS consists of a separation channel with three inflow channels for injection of the carrier fluid and the cells, two outflow channels for separation, and an interdigital transducer (IDT) close to the lateral wall of the separation channel for generation of the SAWs. The cells can be distinguished by fluorescence. The inflow velocities are tuned so that without SAW actuation a cell of type I leaves the device through a designated outflow channel. However, if a cell of type II is detected, the IDT is switched on and the SAWs modify the fluid flow so that the cell leaves the separation channel through the other outflow boundary. The motion of a cell in the carrier fluid is modeled by the Finite Element Immersed Boundary method (FE-IB). Numerical results are presented that illustrate the feasibility of the surface acoustic wave actuated cell sorting approach.     

3D gradient corrected SPH for fully resolved particle–fluid interactions

Fully resolved fluid–solid coupling is explored with the gradient corrected weakly compressible SPH methodology being used to simulate an incompressible Newtonian fluid as well as being used to obtain the coupling force information required to accurately represent these interactions. Gradient correction allows for the application of the Neumann boundary condition required to describe the pressure fields at solid interfaces, as well as symmetry boundary conditions for velocity (where applicable) without the use of ghost or mirrored particles. A scaling study is performed by investigating the drag on an infinitely long cylinder at different smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) resolutions, with finer resolution scales showing good correlation to other studies. The drag characteristics of several particle shapes and topologies are also investigated making use of both convex and non-convex particle shapes. Clear distinction for both the fluid and solid particle responses for the various solid particle shapes are observed. Boundary effects are also explored with results showing a strong responses to changing domain geometry aspect ratios. A many particle system with two different particle shapes are simulated to investigate bulk behaviour of the different solids falling under gravity in a fluid. All results presented in this paper are obtained from full 3D simulations.     

Transport equation with boundary conditions of hysteresis type

This paper is an advanced extension of the work reported in (Nonlinear Anal. 2005; 63 :1467–1473). A transport equation that describes the propagation of a substance in a moving fluid or gas is considered. The equation contains the transient, convection, and diffusion terms. The problem is formulated in a bounded domain provided with an inlet and an outlet for the fluid or gas flow. The crucial point of the problem setting is a hysteresis‐type condition posed on an active part of the boundary. This condition reflects the nondecreasing accumulation with saturation of the transported substance at each point of the active boundary part. We prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions to this problem, study the regularity properties of solutions, and perform numerical simulations that clarify the behavior of the model. Comparing with the results of (Nonlinear Anal. 2005; 63 :1467–1473), the advancement of this work consists in accounting for the motion of the fluid or gas and posing inlet and outlet boundary conditions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical computation of pulsatile flow through a locally constricted channel

This paper deals with the numerical solution of a pulsatile laminar flow through a locally constricted channel. A finite difference technique has been employed to solve the governing equations. The effects of the flow parameters such as Reynolds number, flow pulsation in terms of Strouhal number, constriction height and length on the flow behaviour have been studied. It is found that the peak value of the wall shear stress has significantly changed with the variation of Reynolds numbers and constriction heights. It is also noted that the Strouhal number and constriction length have little effect on the peak value of the wall shear stress. The flow computation reveals that the peak value of the wall shear stress at maximum flow rate time in pulsatile flow situation is much larger than that due to steady flow. The constriction and the flow pulsation produce flow disturbances at the vicinity of the constriction of the channel in the downstream direction.     

Non-reflecting boundary conditions for the compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations in the finite volume method

The paper is concerned with the numerical implementation of the inlet and outlet boundary conditions in the finite volume method for the solution of the 3D Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. The explicit time marching procedure is described. The classical Riemann problem is modified for physically relevant boundary conditions with the aim to keep conservation laws. This technique was used in [2]. The initial condition in the Riemann problem is replaced by the suitable one-sided boundary condition. This results in the acceleration of the numerical method itself. On the inlet the pressure and the density and the angle of attack or velocity vector and the entropy are prescribed. On the outlet the pressure or normal component of the velocity or temperature or mass flow are investigated in such a way to obtain the unique solution of the modified Riemann problem. Various combinations of inlet and outlet boundary conditions are investigated. This results in the sufficiently precise approximation of real flow boundary conditions. Numerical examples illustrating the usefulness of the proposed approach for cascade flow are presented. Another numerical example is shown in [3]. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Numerical simulation of continuous separation of microparticles in two-stage acousto-microfluidic systems

Numerical modelling of acousto-microfluidic particle manipulation systems cannot only be used to explain the complex phenomena observed in experiments, but can also be applied to optimise their performances. In this work, we present numerical simulations of continuous-flow-based two-stage acoustic microparticle separations with a reduced-fluid model, which is consisted of three main parts: (1) an acoustic focusing zone; (2) a transition zone; and (3) an acoustic separation zone. The acoustophoresis of microparticles of various sizes in the fluid channel was modelled based on Newton's second law, where the acoustic radiation forces and the flow-induced drag forces, the main driving terms for particle motion, were solved from the Gorkov equation and the Navier-Stokes equations, respectively. It was found that an acoustic focusing process configured with appropriate force amplitudes can focus all particles to the same flow vector before entering the separation zone and thus can improve the separation efficiency, and that a sheath flow injected from the transition zone can push the sample flow onto the side boundaries, which can broaden the effective separation range for more robust separations. Based on the mechanism analyses, we here numerically demonstrated acoustofluidic separation of 5 different particle fractions simultaneously in a continuous microfluidic channel ending with 9 equally spaced outlets. We also predicted here that, with carefully designed acoustic and flow fields, it is capable to acoustically separate two different particle fractions with a diameter difference of 4% (difference in acoustic mobility of only ~1.08).     

Effect of injection on the flow of Oldroyd fluid in the inlet region of a channel

The effect of injection on the flow of Oldroyd fluid in the inlet region of a channel has been investigated using the moment and energy integrals, taking into account the loss of energy due to viscous dissipation in the boundary layer. Analytical expression for boundary layer development has been presented.     

界面滑移流体动压膜承载能力的形成

运用界面滑移可在两平行平板表面间形成具有承载能力的流体动压膜．在流体入口区,静止平板表面上流体-接触表面的界面剪切强度具有较低值,以在该界面处产生界面滑移,而在流体出口区,静止平板表面上流体-接触表面的界面剪切强度具有足够高的值,以避免在该界面处出现界面滑移．整个运动平板表面上流体-接触表面的界面剪切强度具有足够高的值,以避免在运动平板表面上出现界面滑移．分析表明,这种流体动压接触区具有显著承载能力．使整个接触区具有最大承载能力的流体出口区宽度与入口区宽度的比值为0.5．     

Observability and reachability for parallel-flow heat exchanger equations

^** Email: sano{at}cc.kagoshima-u.ac.jp This paper is concerned with the dynamical analysis of parallel-flowheat exchanger equations with observation at the outlet of tube/controlat the inlet of tube. The parallel-flow heat exchanger equationis super-stable under zero boundary condition. The system canbe described by an unbounded operator of lower triangular formthrough a variable transformation. By calculating a C₀-semigroupgenerated by the operator, it is shown that the system is observableif both fluid temperatures are measured at the outlet, and thatthe system is observable with respect to the non-negative coneof the state space if either of them is measured at the outlet.Moreover, it is shown that the system is reachable if both fluidtemperatures are controlled at the inlet, and that the systemis reachable with respect to the non-negative cone of the statespace if either of them is controlled at the inlet.     

Pressure and flow in two dimensional numerical bifurcation models

The finite element method has been used to solve the Navier-Strokes equations for steady flow conditions in bifurcations. The results are presented as pressure, velocity and streamline plots at different Reynolds number. The three bifurcations considered have rigid walls and bifurcation angles of 0°, 20° and 180°. For the bifurcation with branch angles 0° and 20° there is flow separation along the inner wall of the outlet branches and large spatial pressure variations, these phenomena being more pronounced at the higher Reynolds numbers. For the bifurcation with a branch angle of 180° the high pressure gradients occured at the outer corner and for the high Reynolds number a vortex formation developed downstream of this corner.