A Lattice Boltzmann study of flow along patterned surfaces and through channels with alternating slip length

TL;DR

This study uses lattice Boltzmann simulations to analyze how patterned surfaces with varying slip lengths influence microfluidic flow, revealing tensorial effects and potential for micro mixer applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates that effective slip length depends on stripe pattern orientation and confirms the tensorial nature of slip, enabling transverse flow in microfluidic devices.

Findings

Effective slip length depends on stripe orientation.

Tensorial slip allows transverse flow and vortex formation.

Maximum slip occurs with stripes parallel to flow.

Abstract

In microfluidics, varying wetting properties, expressed in terms of the local slip length, can be used to influence the flow of a liquid through a device. We study flow past surfaces on which the slip length is modulated in stripes. We find that the effective slip length for such a flow can be expressed as a function of the individual slip lengths on the stripes. The angle dependence of the effective slip is in excellent agreement with a recent theory describing the slip length as a tensorial quantity. This tensorial nature allows to induce a transverse flow, which can be used in micro mixers to drive a vortex. In our simulations of a flow through a square channel with patterned surfaces we see a homogeneous rotation about the direction of the flow. We investigate the influence of patterns of cosine shaped varying local slip on the flow field depending on the orientation of the pattern and find the largest effective slip length for periods of stripes parallel to the flow direction.