Droplet migration characteristics in confined oscillatory microflows

TL;DR

This study investigates how droplets migrate in confined oscillatory microflows, revealing complex, time-dependent movement patterns influenced by oscillation frequency, droplet deformability, and flow dynamics, with implications for microfluidic system design.

Contribution

It introduces a phase field formalism to analyze droplet migration under oscillatory conditions, uncovering the intricate time-dependent behaviors and underlying physics of droplet movement.

Findings

Droplet migration paths are complex and time-dependent under oscillatory flow.

Longitudinal droplet movement aligns with flow oscillation frequency.

Transverse movement exhibits complex, non-intuitive patterns explained by reciprocal identity analysis.

Abstract

We analyze the migration characteristics of a droplet in an oscillatory flow field in a parallel plate micro-confinement. Using phase filed formalism, we capture the dynamical evolution of the droplet over a wide range of the frequency of the imposed oscillation in the flow field, drop size relative to the channel gap, and the capillary number. The latter two factors imply the contribution of droplet deformability, commonly considered in the study of droplet migration under steady shear flow conditions. We show that the imposed oscillation brings in additional time complexity in the droplet movement, realized through temporally varying drop-shape, flow direction and the inertial response of the droplet. As a consequence, we observe a spatially complicated pathway of the droplet along the transverse direction, in sharp contrast to the smooth migration under a similar yet steady shear flow condition. Intuitively, the longitudinal component of the droplet movement is in tandem with the flow continuity and evolves with time at the same frequency as that of the imposed oscillation, although, with an amplitude decreasing with the frequency. The time complexity of the transverse component of the movement pattern, however, cannot by rationalized through such intuitive arguments. Towards bringing out the underlying physics, we further endeavor in a reciprocal identity based analysis. Following this approach, we unveil the time complexities of the droplet movement, which appear to be sufficient to rationalize the complex movement patterns observed through the comprehensive simulation studies. These results can be of profound importance in designing droplet based microfluidic systems in an oscillatory flow environment.