The design and production time for complex microfluidic systems is considerable, often up to several months. It is therefore important to be able to understand and predict the flow phenomena prior to design and fabrication of the microdevice in order to save costly fabrication resources. The structures are often of complex geometry and include strongly three-dimensional flow behaviour, which poses a challenge for the micro particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) technique. The flow in a microfluidic 3D-sheathing structure has been measured throughout the volume using micro-PIV. In addition, a stereoscopic principle was applied to obtain all three velocity components, showing the feasibility of obtaining full volume mapping (x, y, z, U, V, W) from micro-PIV measurements. The results are compared with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

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