Braess’s paradox and programmable behaviour in microfluidic networks
Daniel J. Case,
Yifan Liu,
István Z. Kiss,
Jean-Régis Angilella and
Adilson E. Motter ()
Additional contact information
Daniel J. Case: Northwestern University
Yifan Liu: Saint Louis University
István Z. Kiss: Saint Louis University
Jean-Régis Angilella: UNICAEN, UNIROUEN, ABTE
Adilson E. Motter: Northwestern University
Nature, 2019, vol. 574, issue 7780, 647-652
Abstract:
Abstract Microfluidic systems are now being designed with precision as miniaturized fluid manipulation devices that can execute increasingly complex tasks. However, their operation often requires numerous external control devices owing to the typically linear nature of microscale flows, which has hampered the development of integrated control mechanisms. Here we address this difficulty by designing microfluidic networks that exhibit a nonlinear relation between the applied pressure and the flow rate, which can be harnessed to switch the direction of internal flows solely by manipulating the input and/or output pressures. We show that these networks— implemented using rigid polymer channels carrying water—exhibit an experimentally supported fluid analogue of Braess’s paradox, in which closing an intermediate channel results in a higher, rather than lower, total flow rate. The harnessed behaviour is scalable and can be used to implement flow routing with multiple switches. These findings have the potential to advance the development of built-in control mechanisms in microfluidic networks, thereby facilitating the creation of portable systems and enabling novel applications in areas ranging from wearable healthcare technologies to deployable space systems.
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1701-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:574:y:2019:i:7780:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1701-6
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1701-6
Access Statistics for this article
Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper
More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().