Numerical Simulation of 3D Printed Resin Droplet-Based Microfluidic Device With T-Junction Geometry

Droplet-based microfluidics is a device that can process fluids on a micro-scale to be broken down into uniform droplets at a relatively fast rate. The droplet forming process can be done in a T-junction droplet-based microfluidics configuration where a dispersed fluid is injected into a continuous fluid flow to produce dispersed fluid droplets. In general, droplet-based microfluidics research is done using experimental tests which are limited in empirical observation, especially for mass production cases where an optimized design is needed. In this study, a numerical simulation was carried out to replicate the droplet generation in the droplet-based microfluidic device based on three-dimensional (3D) printed resin T-junction geometric scheme. Numerical simulation was carried out in a two-dimensional (2D) simulation using the level-set method (LSM) based on the finite element method (FEM) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools for two-phase flow. Water is used as the dispersed fluid, and silicone oil 350 cp is used as the continuous fluid streamed into microfluidic channels with a height of 0.5 mm and a flow rate of 2.5 ml/hr. This study provides the influence of physical parameters such as the shear stress, pressure, and velocity profile which are evaluated at an evaluation point which directly affects the formation of droplets due to the interaction between two immiscible fluids. In addition, suggestions for future droplet generation simulations in microfluidics simulations are also obtained.