Multiphase Microfluidics

With the advancement in manufacturing technology in past few decades, the trend towards miniaturization has accelerated in several industries. In chemical process industries, the viability of compact heat exchangers, microreactors for process intensification is being explored because of small diffusion lengths, high interfacial area density and relatively safe operation. Most of these equipments involve multiphase flows and their design requires a fundamental understanding of heat, mass and momentum transport in multiphase flow in microchannels. This course is aimed at introducing the students with the fundamental principles as well as recent developments in the area of multiphase flow at the small scale.

Week 1:Introduction: Motivation, applications, definitions, size effects
Week 2:Interfacial Phenomena: Capillarity, wetting and dewetting behavior, Contact line dynamics
Week 3:Gas liquid and liquid-liquid flow in microchannels: Flow regimes; pressure drop and phase distribution
Week 4:Transport processes in Taylor Flow in microchannels
Week 5:Bubble and droplet generation; annular and slug-annular flow regimes
Week 6:Gas-solid flow in microchannels; Inertial microfluidics; multiphase microreactors
Week 7:Condesation, evaporation and boiling in microchannels
Week 8:Experimental and computational techniques to study multiphase flow in microchannels