2015/09/10 by Kaustav Chaudhury, Chaudhury, Kaustav, Debabrata Dasgupta +6 · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Aerospace engineering #Breakup #Composite material #Digital microfluidics #Drop (telecommunication) #Electrowetting #Engineering #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Thin Films #Fluidics #Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation #Materials science #Mechanical engineering #Mechanics #Microfluidics #Nanotechnology #Physics #Shear (geology) #Shear flow #Surface Modification and Superhydrophobicity #Wetting #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1509.03022
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · Article: 14 pages, 3 figures; Supplementary: 2 pages, 1 figure
arxiv created 2015/09/10 · openalex publication_date 2015/09/10 · arxiv updated 2015/09/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Droplets confined in a microfluidic channel often exhibit intriguing shapes, primarily attributable to complex hydrodynamic interactions over small scales. We show that effect of varied substrate wettability conditions may further complicate these interactions remarkably, and often non-trivially. Our studies reveal that the combined influence of substrate wettability and fluidic confinement eventually culminates towards influencing the droplet transients, distortion of the local shear flow field, as well as drop stabilization against breakup or detachment, allowing one to develop different regimes of shapes evolution that are fascinatingly distinct from the ones reported in earlier studies on drop breakup in micro-confined shear flows. We further demonstrate that combined consequences of wall effects and interfacial wettability characteristics can be exploited to pattern microfluidic substrates with pre-designed patches, bearing far-ranging scientific and technological consequences in several scientific and technological applications of contemporary relevance.