JOULE HEATING EFFECTS ON
ELECTROOSMOTIC FLOW
OCCURING IN A CYLINDRICAL
CONSTRICTION MICROCHANNEL
Presentation By
Sanjay U
Amrita school of Engineering,
Amritapuri campus.
Contents
• Introduction
• Microfluidics
• Joule Heating
• Problem definition
• Physics used for simulation
• Basic Equations Used
• COMSOL implementation
• Results
• Conclusions
Introduction
• Microfluidics deals with the precise control and manipulation
of fluids and particles which are constrained to a micro scale.
• With the advent of easy micro-fabrication techniques, there
has been an increasing development in the lab-on-a-chip
(LOC) devices.
• A lab-on-a-chip is a device that integrates several laboratory
functions into a single chip of centimeters in size
Electro kinetic Phenomenon
• Application of electric fields along the microchannel controls
the movement of bulk fluid and the particles
• three important phenomenon are
Electro-osmosis
Electrophoresis.
Dielectrophoresis .
• These phenomena are used in the microfluidics to manipulate
particles and cells like focusing, trapping and separating them.
Concept of Joule Heating
• When a wire is immersed in a mass of water and electric
current is applied temperature of the water increased due to the
current flowing through the wire for a considerable length of
time.
• When voltage difference is applied at the electrodes, electric
energy is consumed by resistive fluid as electric current flow
through and transformed into heat.
• Heat generated due to joule heating is proportional to the
square of electric field
• Where Q is the heat generated in W/m3, σ is the electrical
conductivity in S/m and E is the electric field in V/m.
Problem Setup (Sriram Sridharan)
Problem definition
Top View
Zoomed in View
• Axisymmetry
• Length 1000 μm.
• Outer radius 250 μm.
•Inner radius 200 μm.
• Constriction length 200 μm.
• Constriction radius 20 μm.
Exploded View
Physics Used for simulation
• Ac/Dc Module - Electric currents (dc)
• Heat transfer Module – Conjugate heat transfer
(Laminar flow)
Basic Equations used
1.
2.
(W/m3 )
3.
Electro osmotic velocity
(m/s ) (Helmholtz-Smoluchowski Eqn)
(m2/V.s)
COMSOL Implementation
• 2D Axisymmetry
• Physics
• Geometry Building
• Material Selection
• Boundary Condition
• Meshing
• Post Processing
Boundary Conditions
Figure Electric Boundary Condition Figure: Flow Boundary Condition
Meshing
• The mesh consists of around
7109 triangular elements
and about 418 quadrilateral
elements
• Average mesh quality of
0.94.
Results
• How Joule heating effects the velocity profile?
• How velocity profile was altered due to Joule
heating?
• Comparison of velocity profile with and
without Joule heating.
Figure : Velocity and Temperature distribution of a cylindrical microchannel with zeta
potential -10 mV
Figure : Temperature profile along a cylindrical microchannel with zeta potential of -10 mV
Figure : Velocity profile along a cylindrical microchannel with and without Joule heating
Figure : Velocity profile in a cylindrical microchannel cross section with and without
Joule heating
Conclusion
• The velocity profile was significantly changed
due to the presence of Joule heating and the
plug like velocity profile disappeared.
References
• Baoming Li, Daniel Y. Kwok, 2003, A lattice Boltzmann model for electrokinetic
microchannel flow of electrolyte solution in the presence of external forces with the
Poisson–Boltzmann equation, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 46:
4235–4244.
• Sriram Sridharan, Joule heating effects on electrokinetic transport in constriction
microchannels, M-Tech Thesis, Clemson University, May 2011
• Yuejun Kang, Chun Yang , Xiaoyang Huang, 2004, Analysis of the electroosmotic
flow in a microchannel packed with homogeneous microspheres under
electrokinetic wall effect, International Journal of Engineering Science, 42: 2011–
2027.
• Z Shaoa, C.L Renb, and G.E. Schneiderc, 2009, A complete numerical model for
electrokinetic flow and species transport in microchannels, Physics Journal. Special
Topics, 171:189–194.
THANK YOU