The objective of the proposed research is to investigate microfluidic flow of gases inspired by the manner in which insects manage to pump gas through their microscopic breathing air ducts. The project aims to develop a combination of theoretical and computational tools to explore novel microfluidic methods for gas transport. In particular, the PI will capitalize on her group's ongoing research that studies 3D gas transport in arthropods. The research objectives include theoretical methods to obtain reduced order models for flow in inelastic tubes, and computational methods to develop meshfree simulations of the process. Using this simulation approach, one of the objectives of the proposed research is to assess the validity of using an inelastic tube with local contractions in a practical microfluidic-system for gas transport.

Current gas microfluidic devices are mostly 2D geometries and are indistinguishable from liquid microfluidic devices. They generally consist of smooth, straight channels with uniform cross sections, and are in general ineffective. However, this project is focused on exploring exactly this recently discovered paradigm inspired from nature: gas transport in insect respiratory systems relies on inelastic but locally collapsible tracheal tubes, which differs from macroscopic transport or liquid flow across small spaces. This research program can lead to designing novel microfluidic strategies and devices. Poor gas flow distribution capacities severely limit many microfluidics applications important to public health and industry. In addition to the cooling of handheld electronics devices, many artificial tissue growth and medical lab-on-a-chip technologies are currently limited because of ineffective 3D gas distribution at the microscale. The proposed work could potentially have a profound impact in these fields.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2014-06-01
Budget End
2016-12-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$119,987
Indirect Cost
City
Blacksburg
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
24061