• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제28권12호
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• pp.1549-1556
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• 2004

We have deigned, fabricated and compared four different types of static chaos microfluid mixers, including the mixers using straight channel flow, microblock-induced alternating whirl flow, microchannel-induced lamination flow, and combined alternating whirl-lamination flow. Among them, the alternating whirl-lamination (AWL-type) mixer, composed of 3-D rotationally arranged microblocks and dividing microchannels fabricated by conventional planar lithography process, is effective to reduce the mixing length over wide flow rate ranges. We characterize the performance of the fabricated mixers, through the flow visualization technique using phenolphthalein solution. We verify that the AWL-type microfluid mixer shows the shortest fluid mixing length of 2.8mm∼5.8mm for the flow rate range of Re=0.26∼26 with the pressure drop lower than 5kPa. Compared to the previous mixers, requiring the mixing lengths of 7∼17mm, the AWL-type microfluid mixer results in the 60% reduction of the mixing lengths. Due to the reduced mixing lengths within reasonable pressure drop ranges, the present micromixers have potentials for use in the miniaturized Micro-Total-Analysis-Systems($\mu$TAS).

• 한국가시화정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국가시화정보학회 2002년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.45-48
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• 2002

To investigate the flow related to the mixing, micro PIV measurements were performed in the middle plane of the channel. A passive micro mixer analyzed in this work has been designed in the shape of a three-dimensional microchannel and fabricated with PDMS molding process by KAIST. The mixing performance was evaluated for different flow rates using phenolphthalein and sodium hydroxide solutions. Results show that mixing is enhanced by the increase of flow rate, which yields stronger secondary flows with helical streamlines.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 유체기계공업학회 2006년 제4회 한국유체공학학술대회 논문집
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• pp.309-312
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• 2006

Effective mixing is an important problem in microfluidics for chemical and biomechanical applications. In this study, the influences of the Reynolds number and the oscillating frequency on mixing characteristics of micro-stirrer are studied in a microchannel with single stirrer. The influence of fluid inertial effects in an active mixer is first discussed. It is found that the stirring effects by stirrer oscillation are promptly attenuated at low Reynolds number, which makes greatly difficult the rapid mixing. As the inertial effects are increased, the chaotic advection is generated and then developed. The mixing phase is finally developed some mushroom shaped structure. And the mixing efficiency is also studied as a function of the oscillating frequency. We found that the mixing efficiency does not always increase with higher oscillating frequency of stirrer. Consequently, we found the functional relation between the optimal frequency of a stirrer and the Reynolds number.

• 한국가시화정보학회지
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.53-58
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• 2018

This paper presents an electromagnetically driven microrobot for the enhancement of mixing performance in high viscous liquid media such as blood and bone marrow. First, an electromagnetic system was fabricated, and the magnetic flux density generated from the system was compared with the theoretical value. Second, the reciprocating motion of the microrobot was demonstrated in microchannel using electromagnetic system. As a proof of concept, the mixing performance by the electromagnetically driven microrobot in high viscous liquid was investigated using safranin solution. As a result, it was completely mixed within 140 s with the reciprocating motion of the microrobot while it took 1680 s for natural diffusion. In addition, the mixing efficiency was quantitatively evaluated through a mixing index obtained by an image analysis. The proposed method provides not only wireless actuation of a microrobot with a simple design but also high mixing performance in variety of high viscous liquid media.