A tightly coupled particle-fluid model for DNA-laden flows in complex microscale geometries
D. Treboticha,*, G.H. Millerb,c, P. Colellac, D.T. Gravesc, D.F. Martinc, P.O. Schwartzc
aCenter for Applied Scientific Computing, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, PO Box 808, L-560, Livermore, CA 94551, USA bDepartment of Applied Science, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA cApplied Numerical Algorithms Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
ABSTRACT
We present a stable and convergent method for the computation of flows of DNA-laden fluids in microchannels with complex geometry. The numerical strategy combines a ball-rod model representation for polymers coupled tightly with a projection method for incompressible viscous flow. We use Cartesian grid embedded boundary methods to discretize the fluid equations in the presence of complex domain boundaries. A sample calculation is presented showing flow through a packed array microchannel in two dimensions.
Keywords:
Incompressible Navier-Stokes; Stochastic particle dynamics; DNA; Microfluidics; Embedded boundary method