1. COMSOL Training Series
Session 1:
Introducing COMSOL
Simulating a Microfluidic Mixer

2. Multiphysics Simulation
…what it is

3. …What is Multiphysics?
…study of systems involving
multiple simultaneous
physical phenomena

4. Reaction
Kinetics
Heat
Waves
Transfer
Physical
System
Electro-
Fluid Flow
magnetism
And
more!!

5. Why Simulate?
Eigen-frequency
analysis on
Crankshaft
…design
validation

6. Why Simulate?
Cooling air flow
optimization in
turbine stator
blade
…design optimization

7. Why Simulate?
Convective
Cooking of
Chicken Patties!
…just for fun! (?)

8. How to Simulate?
…philosophy of
Finite Element Modeling

9. 3 Fundamental Concepts…
Define
Physical
Phenomena
Discretize as PDEs
the Domain
Solve for
each node
& Color!
To Results!

10. Discretization…
Chopping down a continuum
body into finite number of
elements…

11. Defining the Phenomena…
Define what happens to the
system in form of Partial
Differential Equations

12. Solve, Store & Color…
Low
Medium
High
Solve the PDEs over the grid,
store values at each node and
color on RGB scale…

13. How to do it by COMSOL?
…Getting Started

14. • Create CAD geometry or import
Geometry
• Define material properties
Materials
• Define parameters & custom Functions
Global Definitions
• Choose/define PDEs to be solved & coupled
PDE Choices • Set boundary conditions for each PDE
• Create mesh
Mesh • Allot suitable mesh to specific PDE
• Choose study type
Solver • Choose numeric settings
• Visualize the contour plots
Results/ Post-Processing • Abstract results

15. Example One
…The Microfluidic Mixer

16. Today, the world
needs state-of-art µ-
TAS (Micro Total
Analysis Systems)…
Micromixers are
components of µ-TAS used
for obtaining rapid mixing
of fluid samples in a short
Photocredits: orgatronics [dot] com

17. Simulating the Micromixer
…formulation

18. PDEs in the domain…
Navier Stokes & Continuity Equations
Convection-Diffusion Equation

19. Let’s Begin!
…on to COMSOL