An experimental work is carried out to investigate the pressure drop and to visualize the flow field in the entrance region of an array of rectangular modules attached to the lower wall of a duct. The modules are positioned in an in-line arrangement to simulate the geometry often encountered in the cooling passages of electronic units. The investigation is performed in both laminar and turbulent regions with Reynolds number ranging from 400 to 15,000. The geometric parameters range from H/L = 0.125 to 1.5 and S/L = 0.125 to 0.5, while the value of B/L is fixed to 0.5. The flow visualization revealed a highly separated region on the first module of the array. The pressure drops are correlated for the range of Re, H/L, and S/L employed in this work.
This paper presents the modeling and optimization of a magnetophoretic bio-separation chip for isolating cells, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the peripheral blood. The chip consists of a continuous-flow microfluidic platform that contains locally engineered magnetic field gradients. The high gradient magnetic field produced by the magnets is spatially nonuniform and gives rise to an attractive force on magnetic particles flowing through a fluidic channel. Simulations of the particle-fluid transport and the magnetic force are performed to predict the trajectories and capture lengths of the particles within the fluidic channel. The computational model takes into account key forces, such as the magnetic and fluidic forces and their effect on design parameters for an effective separation. The results show that the microfluidic device has the capability of separating various cells from their native environment. An experimental study is also conducted to verify and validate the simulation results. Finally, to improve the performance of the separation device, a parametric study is performed to investigate the effects of the magnetic bead size, cell size, number of beads per cell, and flow rate on the cell separation performance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.