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Full-Text Articles in Complex Fluids

Evaluation Of A Microfluidic Mixer Utilizing Staggered Herringbone Channels: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach, Brian Hama Jan 2017

Evaluation Of A Microfluidic Mixer Utilizing Staggered Herringbone Channels: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach, Brian Hama

ETD Archive

Microfluidic platforms offer a variety of advantages including improved heat transfer, low working volumes, ease of scale-up, and strong user control on parameters. However, flow within microfluidic channels occurs at low Reynolds numbers, which makes mixing difficult to accomplish. Adding V-shaped ridges to channel walls, a pattern called the staggered herringbone design (SHB), might alleviate this problem by introducing transverse flow patterns that enable enhanced mixing. However, certain factors affecting the SHB mixer’s performance remain largely unexplored.

In this work, a microfluidic mixer utilizing the SHB geometry was developed and characterized using computational fluid dynamics based simulations and complimentary experiments. …


Microstructure And Rheology Of Carbon Nanotubes At Air-Water Interfaces, Charles D. Young May 2016

Microstructure And Rheology Of Carbon Nanotubes At Air-Water Interfaces, Charles D. Young

Honors Scholar Theses

This work characterizes the material properties of carbon nanotubes at air-water interfaces for potential use in creating stable emulsions. Properties such as length, aspect ratio, contact angle, microstructural ordering, surface pressure, compression and shear elastic moduli, stresses, surface viscosities and non-linearity are explored. Challenges such as deviation from a classical analysis of monolayers are encountered in the form of aggregation, mechanical contributions, and interface relaxation. These factors are taken into account to explain experimental measurements and trends. Ultimately, existing models for more homogeneous systems are resolved with observations to offer insight and areas of promise moving forward.