COMSOL Training Series

Session 1:Introducing COMSOLSimulating a Microfluidic Mixer

Multiphysics Simulation

…what it is

…study of systems involving multiple simultaneous physical phenomena

…What is Multiphysics?

Physical System

Reaction Kinetics

Heat Transfer

Fluid Flow

And more!!

Electro-magnetism

Waves

Why Simulate?

…design validation

Eigen-frequency analysis on Crankshaft

Why Simulate?

…design optimization

Cooling air flow optimization in turbine stator

blade

Why Simulate?

…just for fun! (?)

Convective Cooking of

Chicken Patties!

How to Simulate?

…philosophy ofFinite Element Modeling

3 Fundamental Concepts…

To Results!

Solve for each node & Color!

Discretize the Domain

Define Physical Phenomena as

PDEs

Discretization…

Chopping down a continuum body into finite number of elements…

Defining the Phenomena…

Define what happens to the system in form of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)…

Solve, Store & Color…

Solve the PDEs over the grid, store values at each node and color on RGB scale…

Low

Medium

High

How to do it by COMSOL?

…Getting Started

• Create CAD geometry or importGeometry

• Define material propertiesMaterials

• Define parameters & custom FunctionsGlobal Definitions

• Choose/define PDEs to be solved & coupled• Set boundary conditions for each PDEPDE Choices

• Create mesh• Allot suitable mesh to specific PDEMesh

• Choose study type• Choose numeric settingsSolver

• Visualize the contour plots• Abstract resultsResults/ Post-Processing

Example One

…The Microfluidic Mixer

Today, the world needs state-of-art µ-TAS (Micro Total Analysis Systems)…

Micromixers are components of µ-TAS used for obtaining rapid mixing of fluid samples in a short length…

Photocredits: orgatronics [dot] com

Simulating the Micromixer

…formulation

PDEs in the domain…

Navier Stokes & Continuity Equations

Convection-Diffusion Equation

Let’s Begin!

…on to COMSOL