Modeling of low-capillary number segmented flows in microchannels using OpenFOAM

Abstract

Modeling of low-Capillary number segmented flows in microchannels is important for the design of microfluidic devices. We present numerical validations of microfluidic flow simulations using the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method as implemented in OpenFOAM. Two benchmark cases were investigated to ensure the reliability of OpenFOAM in modeling complex physical phenomena in microfluidics, viz. 1) the steady motion of bubbles in capillaries, and 2) the formation of bubbles in T-junctions. We found that it is crucial to reduce spurious currents and to apply local grid refinement to capture the relevant flow physics. With these, we obtain good agreement between our numerical simulations and previously published theoretical and experimental data. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.