Numerical Modeling of Ferrofluid Flow Instabilities in a Capillary Tube at the Vicinity of a Magnet

,
,

Keywords: , , , ,

The use of ferrofluids is now foreseen to be important for microfluidic systems and biotechnological microsystems as microvalves, micropumps or for the control and synchronization of the flow. The advantage lies in the possibility of monitoring and controlling the flow inside the biochip by micro-magnets or micro-electromagnets located outside the microfluidic device. A model for plug flow of ferrofluids separating reagents is presented here and an analysis of the instabilities of the flow is deduced from the model. A comparison with experimental results is shown.

PDF of paper:

Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 1, Technical Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Microsystems
Published: April 22, 2002
Pages: 40 - 43
Industry sector: Sensors, MEMS, Electronics
Topic: Micro & Bio Fluidics, Lab-on-Chip
ISBN: 0-9708275-7-1