Modelo Numérico Eficiente para Flujo Electrocinético en Sistemas Microfluídicos con Geometrías Complejas

PABLO A. KLER, FABIO A. GUARNIERI AND LISANDRO DALCÍN

Córdoba

Congreso; ENIEF-MACI; 2007

Asociación Argentina de Mecánica Computacional (AMCA)

Microfluidic devices like those used in chemical and biomedical applications basicallyconsist of different networks of microchannels that interconnect chambers and reservoirs. Thetransport of fluids throughout the network is driven by pressure gradients, electric fields, or acombination of the two, which yields to the so-called electrokinetic flow. Analytical and numericalmodels have been used to aid in the design and simulation before fabrication with MEMS technology.Efficient numerical models are required since typical microchannel dimensions are in the range ofseveral micrometers in width and depth and some centimeters in length. The numerical solution iscarried out by using PETSC-FEM, for which we have developed a python interface for pre- and postprocessingusing third-parties programs (Tetgen, Mayavi). A parallelizable preconditioner for DomainDecomposition Methods (DDM) by means of Finite Element discretization of Navier-Stokes equationsis used to improve the convergence of problems with different scales like in microfluidic problems.