Numerical Modeling of Elastomeric Peristaltic Micropumps using Lagrangean Methods

Abstract

The controlled transport of small amounts of fluids is fundamental for Labs-On-a-Chip, miniature systems of growing use for chemical and biochemical analysis, that are replacing the actual generation of analytical systems. Micropumps and microvaves are essential to precise control of fluid transportation on these microsystems. One of the main problems on designing such micropumps and microvalves is the lack of precise models. This research proposal is about the numerical modeling of an elastomeric peristaltic micropump using lagrangean meshles methods, that has shown promising results on simulation of multiscale problems. We propose to, along three years, to make the computational model of the behavior of the fluid and the mechanical structure of the peristaltic micropump on five distincs activities: 1) Review of the lagrangean methos electible for modeling the fluid-structure interaction on LOCs; 2) To choose the method and to make the formulation of the constitutive equations that describe the behavior of the fluid, the structure, and the contact fluid-structure; 3) To implement an hybrid fluid-structure simulator, based on particle methods and targeted to run on graphics processing units (GPUs); 4) Numerical modeling a peristaltic elastomeric micropump; 5) Validation of the simulator, comparing its results to published results and to results of our group works on micropumps.