Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Turbulent Mixers For Protein Folding Experiments, Venkatesh Inguva

Doctoral Dissertations

Protein folding studies require the development of micro-mixers that require less sample, mix at faster rates, and still provide a high signal to noise ratio. Chaotic to marginally turbulent micro-mixers are promising candidates for this application. In this study, various turbulence and unsteadiness generation concepts are explored that avoid cavitation. The mixing enhancements include flow turning regions, flow splitters, and vortex shedding. The relative effectiveness of these different approaches for rapid micro-mixing is discussed. Simulations found that flow turning regions provided the best mixing profile. Various turbulence models are simulated to determine appropriate model of the design requirements. Experimental validation …

Multiphase Flows With Digital And Traditional Microfluidics, Michael Andrew Nilsson

Open Access Dissertations

Multi-phase fluid systems are an important concept in fluid mechanics, seen every day in how fluids interact with solids, gases, and other fluids in many industrial, medical, agricultural, and other regimes. In this thesis, the development of a two-dimensional digital microfluidic device is presented, followed by the development of a two-phase microfluidic diagnostic tool designed to simulate sandstone geometries in oil reservoirs. In both instances, it is possible to take advantage of the physics involved in multiphase flows to affect positive outcomes in both.

In order to make an effective droplet-based digital microfluidic device, one must be able to precisely …

Viscoelastic Flow Through Contraction Geometries, Ashwin Karthik Sankaran

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Contraction flow of viscoelastic fluids has been a benchmark problem in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics because it mimics flows occurring in a number of industrial applications. It is also of considerable interest to academia to gain fundamental understanding of factors that affect the evolution of vortices and a complete understanding of the dynamics for a simple polymeric fluid has not been achieved. In this two part study we investigate the effect of pre deformation of a Boger fluid in a contraction geometry and the flow of surfactants in a parallel contraction geometry.

Entry flow of a polymeric fluid results in the …