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Theoretical analysis of fluid flow in microfluidic biomedical devices

Academic lead
Dr Sally Peyman, School of Physics, S.Peyman@leeds.ac.uk
Co-supervisor(s)
Dr Sam Pegler, School of Mathematics, S.Pegler@leeds.ac.uk
Project themes
Biomedical Flows, Underpinning Methods for Fluid Dynamics

Microfluidic devices are promising to revolutionise the biomedical industry from rapid disease diagnostics and modelling to high-throughput drug screening and assessment. Much of the engineering of these next generation devices is done through experimental approaches and analysis. However, there is considerable scope to develop, apply and analyse new mathematical models of microfluidic devices at a fundamental level. These open challenges include the fluid-dynamical control of the delivery and sorting of particles in channels at low-Reynolds number, the effects of magnetic fields on particle control, and the generation and transport dynamics of microbubbles used to deliver treatment payloads to tumours: an illustration of the production of bubble production through the merging of gas and lipid at a channel intersection is provided below. The analysis of viscous flow regimes at low-Reynolds number produce a rich variety of phenomena that can be addressed using a host of analytic, numerical and asymptotic approaches. The project thus offers the opportunity to explore these phenomena at a fundamental theoretical level, with the scope to provide a longstanding impact for the design of microfluidic devices in this emerging biomedical field.