• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.11
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• pp.871-884
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• 2015

Fluid transport is a key issue in the development of microfluidic systems. Recently, Myong (2014) has proposed a new concept for droplet transport without external power sources, and numerically validated the results for a hypothetical 2D shape, initially having a hemicylindrical droplet shape. Myong and Kwon (2015) have also examined the transport mechanism for an actual water droplet, initially having a 3D hemispherical shape, on a horizontal hydrophilic/hydrophobic surface, based on the numerical results of the time evolution of the droplet shape, as well as the total kinetic, gravitational, pressure and surface free energies inside the droplet. In this study, a 3D numerical analysis of an initially spherical droplet is carried out to establish a new concept for droplet transport. Further, the transport mechanism of an actual water droplet is examined in detail from the viewpoint of the capillarity force imbalance through the numerical results of droplet shape and various energies inside the droplet.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.81-84
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• 2006

To investigate the characteristics of water droplet on the gas diffusion layer from both upper-view and side-view of flow channel, a rig test apparatus was designed and fabricated with L-shape acryl plate in a $1mm{\times}1mm$ micro-channel. This experimental device is used to simulate the single droplet growth and its transport process under fuel cell operating condition. As a first step, we investigated the growth and transport of single water droplet with working temperature and air flow velocity. The contact angle and its hysteresis of water droplet at departing moment are measured and analyzed. It is expected that this study can provide the basic understanding of liquid water droplet behavior in gas flow channel and GDL interface during the PEM fuel cell operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.513-523
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• 2014

A fluid transport technique is a key issue for the development of microfluidic systems. In this study, the movement of a droplet on horizontal hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces, which is a new concept to transport droplets without external power sources that was recently proposed by the author, was simulated using an in-house solution code(PowerCFD). This code employs an unstructured cell-centered method based on a conservative pressure-based finite-volume method with interface capturing method(CICSAM) in a volume of fluid(VOF) scheme for phase interface capturing. The droplet transport mechanism is examined through numerical results that include velocity vectors, pressure contours, and total kinetic energy inside and around the droplet.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.263-270
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• 2014

A fluid transport technique is a key issue for the development of microfluidic systems. In this paper, a new concept for transporting a droplet without external power sources is proposed and verified numerically. The proposed device is a heterogeneous surface which has both hydrophilic and hydrophobic horizontal surfaces. The numerical simulation to demonstrate the new concept is conducted by an in-house solution code (PowerCFD) which employs an unstructured cell-centered method based on a conservative pressure-based finite-volume method with interface capturing method (CICSAM) in a volume of fluid (VOF) scheme for phase interface capturing. It is found that the proposed concept for droplet transport shows superior performance for droplet transport in microfluidic systems.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.28-34
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• 1996

Study on the mechanism of droplet transport and the droplet eddy diffusivity in the intake manifold of internal conbustion engine with carburetor has been carried out in this paper The theory and experiments were studied and performed respectively, to elucidate the mechanism and to measure typical rates of deposition, on the walls of a straight type intake manifold, of water droplets suspended in a turbulent air streams. Accordingly, the results are that Mechanism of a spray transport to the walls is caused by the fluctuation component of radial velocity. Deposition rate of a spray on the walls is mainly dependent upon air velocity and mean diameter of spray, and Droplet eddy diffusivity in the intake manifold is around $80\sim105cm^2/sec$.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.402-407
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• 2011

The current paper describes a simpler ground-type, single-plate electrowetting configuration for droplet transport in digital microfluidics without performance degradation. The simplified fabrication process is achieved with two photolithography steps. The first step simultaneously patterns both a control electrode array and a reference electrode on a substrate. The second step patterns a dielectric layer at the top to expose the reference electrode for grounding the liquid droplet. In the experiment, a $5{\mu}m$ thick photo-imageable polyimide, with a 3.3 dielectric constant, is used as the dielectric layer. A 10 nm Teflon-AF is coated to obtain a hydrophobic surface with a high water advancing angle of $116^{\circ}$ and a small contact angle hysteresis of $5^{\circ}$. The droplet movement of 1 mM methylene blue on this simplified device is successfully demonstrated at control voltages above the required 45 V to overcome the contact angle hysteresis.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.345-360
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• 2019

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) is one of the leading advanced energy conversion technology for the use in transport. It generates water droplets through the catalytic processes and dispenses the water through the gas-flowed microchannels. The droplets in the dispensing microchannel experience g-forces from different directions during the operation in transport. Therefore, this paper reviews the computational modelling topics of droplet dynamics behaviour specifically for three categories, i.e. (i) the droplet sliding down a surface, (ii) the droplet moving in a gas-flowed microchannel, and (iii) the droplet jumping upon coalescence on superhydrophobic surface; in particular for the parameters like hydrophobicity surfaces, droplet sizes, numerical methods, channel sizes, wall conditions, popular references and boundary conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.405-414
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• 2015

Fluid transport is a key issue in the development of microfluidic systems. Recently, Myong (2014) has proposed a new concept for droplet transport without external power sources and numerically validated the results for a hypothetical 2D, initially having a hemicylindrical droplet. In this paper, the movement of an actual water droplet, initially having a 3D hemispherical shape, on horizontal hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces is simulated using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package, Fluent, with VOF (volume of fluid) method. The results are compared with the 2D analysis of Myong (2014), and the transport mechanism for the actual water droplet is examined based on the numerical results of the time evolution of the droplet shape, as well as the total kinetic, gravitational, surface free and pressure energies inside the droplet.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.83-89
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• 2004

Vaporization characteristics of a liquid heptane droplet in high-pressure and temperature flow field are numerically studied. Variable thermodynamic and transport properties and high-pressure effects are taken into account in order to consider real gas effects. Droplet Vaporization in convective environments was investigated on the basis of droplet vaporization in quiescent and convective environment. In quiescent environments, droplet lifetime is directly proportional to pressure at the subcritical temperature range but it is inversely proportional to pressure at the supercritical temperature range. In convective environment, droplet deformation becomes stronger by increasing Reynolds number due to increase of velocity while droplet deformation is relatively weak at a higher pressure for the same Reynolds number cases.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1595-1603
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• 2003

Droplet combustion at high ambient pressures is studied numerically by formulating one dimensional combustion model in the mixture of n-heptane fuel and air. The ambient pressure is supercritical conditions. The modified Soave-Redlich-Kwong state equation is used in the evaluation of thermophysical properties to account for the real gas effect on fluid p-v-T properties in high pressure conditions. Non-ideal thermodynamic and transport property at near critical and supercritical conditions are also considered. Several parametric studies are performed by changing ambient pressure and initial droplet diameter. Droplet lifetime decreased with increasing pressure. Surface temperature increased with increasing pressure. Ignition time increased with increasing initial droplet diameter. Temporal or spatial distribution of mass fraction, mass diffusivity, Lewis number, thermal conductivity, and specific heat were presented.