Fluidic Capacitance Model of Capillary-Driven Stop Valves
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), 2000 : presented at the 2000 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, (2000)Abstract
This paper presents current research in design analysis of passive micro-fluidic stop valves driven by capillary forces. Capillary valves are used in controlling the liquid position by presenting a capillary pressure barrier due to a sudden change in cross-section. Valves of this type have multiple advantages on precise control in micro-fluidic devices over conventional ones. In the design of a device employing such valves, a model describing the behavior of these valves is highly desirable. In this paper, we describe the extraction of this model using numerical techniques validated with experiment. The numerical analyses are conducted in FlumeCAD, a design and analysis tool for micro-fluidic devices. The detailed analyses yield a fluidic capacitance model for the capillary-driven valves. Devices that are pneumatically pressurized and driven by centrifugal force are studied in this paper. The methodology presented in this article can, in principle, be applied to a wide range of devices and actuation mechanisms.