Chapter 4
Dimensioning Droplet Microfluidic
Networks
In order to design a droplet microfluidic network, all used components have to
be properly chosen. This includes the specifications of the used pumps, modules,
sorters, and channels—i.e., the microfluidic network needs to be dimensioned.
As explained in the previous section, these specifications of all components and
how they are connected determine the flow of droplets. Especially the specification
of channels (i.e., their resistances) can be varied in a broad bandwidth and,
by this, their dimensioning constitutes a significant challenge. In fact, improper
specifications can cause
• the flow in channels/modules to be in the wrong direction or
• the time a droplet requires to pass a channel/module to be too long/short.
However, for dimensioning a microfluidic network, a huge number of constraints
and dependencies have to be considered and already slightly changing, e.g., the
resistance of a single channel may change the behavior of the entire microfluidic
system. Additionally, no dedicated tool support exists yet for completing this
specification. Hence, designers are usually left alone during this crucial step, which
frequently yields specifications that do not work as intended.
In this chapter, these problems are addressed by introducing automatic methods
(based on [49]) that aid designers in the specification of droplet microfluidic
networks—especially in the dimensioning of channels. More precisely, in this
chapter methods are proposed which automatically allow to (1) validate whether
a manually derived specification indeed works as intended, i.e. fulfills certain
objectives as well as (2) conduct the dimensioning to obtain a proper specification.
Both methods are based on the 1D analysis model described in Sect. 3.2, which
constitutes the single means of describing the flow distribution in this early stage of
the design process.
Case studies show that both methods significantly aid the designer in the process
of determining a precise specification for droplet microfluidic networks. To this
end, a designer having expert knowledge was provided with these two methods.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
A. Grimmer, R. Wille, Designing Droplet Microfluidic Networks,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20713-7_4
51
Dimensioning Droplet Microfluidic
Networks
In order to design a droplet microfluidic network, all used components have to
be properly chosen. This includes the specifications of the used pumps, modules,
sorters, and channels—i.e., the microfluidic network needs to be dimensioned.
As explained in the previous section, these specifications of all components and
how they are connected determine the flow of droplets. Especially the specification
of channels (i.e., their resistances) can be varied in a broad bandwidth and,
by this, their dimensioning constitutes a significant challenge. In fact, improper
specifications can cause
• the flow in channels/modules to be in the wrong direction or
• the time a droplet requires to pass a channel/module to be too long/short.
However, for dimensioning a microfluidic network, a huge number of constraints
and dependencies have to be considered and already slightly changing, e.g., the
resistance of a single channel may change the behavior of the entire microfluidic
system. Additionally, no dedicated tool support exists yet for completing this
specification. Hence, designers are usually left alone during this crucial step, which
frequently yields specifications that do not work as intended.
In this chapter, these problems are addressed by introducing automatic methods
(based on [49]) that aid designers in the specification of droplet microfluidic
networks—especially in the dimensioning of channels. More precisely, in this
chapter methods are proposed which automatically allow to (1) validate whether
a manually derived specification indeed works as intended, i.e. fulfills certain
objectives as well as (2) conduct the dimensioning to obtain a proper specification.
Both methods are based on the 1D analysis model described in Sect. 3.2, which
constitutes the single means of describing the flow distribution in this early stage of
the design process.
Case studies show that both methods significantly aid the designer in the process
of determining a precise specification for droplet microfluidic networks. To this
end, a designer having expert knowledge was provided with these two methods.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
A. Grimmer, R. Wille, Designing Droplet Microfluidic Networks,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20713-7_4
51