Droplets interactions in a capillary tube

 

The aim of the project is to understand the dynamic of two pressure driven droplet in a capillary tube when interacting with each others.
Microfluidic devices are frequently utilized in order to generate, manipulate and transport droplets, this is useful in a wide variety of application (chemical analysis, biological analysis, polymer manufacturing) and it is therefore a current research topic.
The behavior of a droplet moving in a capillary tube has been recently studied (Lac et al. 2009), our focus is on the study of the interaction of two droplet and at first the observation of the pair droplet velocity. In practical applications droplets can have different surface properties and different size (polidispersity) between each other, therefore a parametric study will be carried on varying surface properties, droplet size and geometrical confinement. In order to pursue this objective extensive DNS are necessary, these will be carried on an in house code implementing BEM (boundary element method). The code is written in MATLAB and therefore a good knowledge of the software is required

Supervisor: Giacomo Gallino