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Inertial focusing of spherical particles in curved microfluidic ducts at moderate Dean numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2023

Brendan Harding*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Victoria University Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
Yvonne M. Stokes
Affiliation:
School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
*
Email address for correspondence: brendan.harding@adelaide.edu.au

Abstract

We examine the effect of Dean number on the inertial focusing of spherical particles suspended in flow through curved microfluidic ducts. Previous modelling of particle migration in curved ducts assumed the flow rate was small enough that a leading-order approximation of the background flow with respect to the Dean number produces a reasonable model. Herein, we extend our model to situations involving a moderate Dean number (in the microfluidics context) while the particle Reynolds number remains small. Variations in the Dean number cause a change in the axial velocity profile of the background flow which influences the inertial lift force on a particle. Simultaneously, changes in the cross-sectional velocity components of the background flow directly affect the secondary flow induced drag. In keeping the particle Reynolds number small, we continue to approximate the inertial lift force using a regular perturbation while capturing the subtle effects from the modified background flow. This approach pushes the limits at which a regular perturbation is applicable to provide some insights into how variations in the Dean number influence particle focusing. Our results illustrate that, as the extrema in the background flow move towards the outside of edge of the cross-section with increasing Dean number, we observe a similar shift in the stable equilibria of some, but not all, particle sizes. This might be exploited to enhance the lateral separation of particles by size in a number of practical scenarios.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1. Curved duct with rectangular cross-section containing a spherical particle located at $\boldsymbol {x}_{p}=\boldsymbol {x}(\theta _{p},r_{p},z_{p})$. The enlarged view of the cross-section containing the particle illustrates the origin of the local $r,z$ coordinates at the centre of the duct. The bend radius $R$ is with respect to the centerline of the duct. Note that we do not consider the flow near the inlet/outlet. Adapted from Harding et al. (2019).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Cross-sections of a curved rectangular duct depicting (a) the axial component of the background flow; (b) the secondary component of the background flow consisting of two vertically symmetric counter-rotating vortices; (c) a spherical particle and the primary cross-sectional forces which drive its migration. Here, $\boldsymbol {F}_{S}$ is the drag from the secondary component of the background flow, and $\boldsymbol {F}_{L}$ is the inertial lift force. The magnitude and direction of each vector are for illustration only. Gravitational and centrifugal/centripetal forces are omitted. The background flow is shown to be skewed towards the outside wall of the curved duct (here on the right), as is expected at moderate Dean numbers. Adapted from Harding & Stokes (2020).

Figure 2

Figure 3. The relative $L_{2}$ error of truncated perturbation approximations of $\bar {u}_{\theta }$ and $\bar {\varPhi }$ vs (a) the Dean number $K\in [1,200]$, (b) the relative curvature $\epsilon \in [10^{-4},0.25]$ and (c) the cross-section aspect ratio $W/H\in [1,5]$. (d) Shows the change in the average of $\bar {u}_{\theta }$ and $|(\bar {u}_{r},\bar {u}_{z})|$ vs $K\in [0,200]$. Parameters are: (a) $W/H=2$ and $\epsilon =0.01$; (b) $W/H=2$ and $K=100$; (c) $K=100$ and $\epsilon =0.01$; (d) $W/H=2$ and $\epsilon =0.01$.

Figure 3

Figure 4. The fields (a,c) $\bar {u}_\theta$ and (b,d) $\bar {\varPhi }$ for (a,b) $K=0$ and (c,d) $K=100$. In each case $\epsilon =0.01$ and $W/H=2$. The colour bars have been fixed across the pairs (a,c) and (b,d) for comparison.

Figure 4

Figure 5. Lateral particle focusing as a function of the Dean number $K$ for a cross-section with aspect ratio $2$ and bend radii (a) $\epsilon ^{-1}=80$ and (b) $\epsilon ^{-1}=160$. The horizontal focusing location, $r_{p}^{\ast }$, is non-dimensionalised with respect to $\ell /2$. Six particles are shown with radius indicated by the shading around the solid line denoting the location of the stable equilibrium. Note the horizontal axis has been restricted to $[-2,1]$ (from $[-2,2]$). For the larger particle sizes, a horizontal dashed line shows where $\textit {Re}_p=1$.

Figure 5

Figure 6. Lateral particle focusing as a function of the Dean number $K$ for a cross-section with aspect ratio $4$ and bend radii (a) $\epsilon ^{-1}=80$ and (b) $\epsilon ^{-1}=160$. The horizontal focusing location, $r_{p}^{\ast }$, is non-dimensionalised with respect to $\ell /2$. Six particles are shown with radius indicated by the shading around the solid line denoting the location of the stable equilibria (for $\alpha =0.05$ this is barely perceptible). Note the horizontal axis has been restricted to $[-4,1]$ (from $[-4,4]$). For the larger particle sizes, a horizontal dashed line shows where $\textit {Re}_p=1$.

Figure 6

Figure 7. Trajectories of particles towards stable equilibria in a curved rectangular duct with aspect ratio $2$ and dimensionless bend radius $\epsilon ^{-1}=80$. The particle has size (ac) $\alpha =0.10$ and (df) $\alpha =0.15$, and the Dean number has values (a,d) $K=1$, (b,e) $K=100$ and (cf) $K=200$. The left side is the inside wall of the curved duct. Stable equilibria are green, saddle equilibria are yellow and unstable equilibria are red. The marker size reflects the size of the particle.

Figure 7

Figure 8. Trajectories of particles towards stable equilibria in a curved rectangular duct with aspect ratio $2$ and dimensionless bend radius $\epsilon ^{-1}=160$. The particles have sizes (ac) $\alpha =0.10$ and (df) $\alpha =0.20$, and the Dean number has values (a,d) $K=1$, (b,e) $K=100$ and (cf) $K=200$. The left side is the inside wall of the curved duct. Stable equilibria are green, saddle equilibria are yellow and unstable equilibria are red. The marker size reflects the size of the particle.

Figure 8

Figure 9. Trajectories of particles towards stable equilibria in a curved rectangular duct with aspect ratio $2$ and dimensionless bend radius $\epsilon ^{-1}=80$. The particle size is (a,c,e) $\alpha =0.05$ and (b,df) $\alpha =0.20$, and the Dean number has values (a,b) $K=1$, (c,d) $K=100$ and (ef) $K=200$. The left side is the inside wall of the curved duct. Stable equilibria are green, saddle equilibria are yellow and unstable equilibria are red. The marker size reflects the size of the particle.

Figure 9

Figure 10. Trajectories of particles towards stable equilibria in a curved rectangular duct with aspect ratio $2$ and dimensionless bend radius $\epsilon ^{-1}=160$. The particle size is (a,c,e) $\alpha =0.10$ and (b,df) $\alpha =0.20$, and the Dean number has values (a,b) $K=1$, (c,d) $K=100$ and (ef) $K=200$. The left side is the inside wall of the curved duct. Stable equilibria are green, saddle equilibria are yellow and unstable equilibria are red. The marker size reflects the size of the particle.

Figure 10

Figure 11. Horizontal location of stable equilibria $\tilde {r}_{p}^{\ast }$ vs (a,c,e) $\epsilon ^{-1}$ and (b,d,e) $\kappa$, for the Dean numbers (a,b) $K=50$, (c,d) $K=100$ and (ef) $K=150$. The duct cross-section has aspect ratio $2$ and $\tilde {r}_{p}^{\ast }$ is non-dimensionalised with respect to $\ell /2$. The light shaded area illustrates the region occupied by a stable orbit which occurs only when $\alpha =0.05$ for $K\gtrsim 100$.

Figure 11

Figure 12. Horizontal location of stable equilibria $\tilde {r}_{p}^{\ast }$ vs (a,c,e) $\epsilon ^{-1}$ and (b,d,e) $\kappa$, for the Dean numbers (a,b) $K=50$, (c,d) $K=100$ and (ef) $K=150$. The duct cross-section has aspect ratio $4$ and $\tilde {r}_{p}^{\ast }$ is non-dimensionalised with respect to $\ell /2$. The light shaded area illustrates the region occupied by a stable orbit which occurs only when $\alpha =0.05$ for $K\gtrsim 100$.