Exercises Microfluidics: Effects and Phenomena SS 2016

Dr. Nils Paust, Dr. Matthias Meier, Prof. Roland Zengerle

Due: 28.4.2016

Name: ______________________

Matrikel Nr. _____________

Exercise 1 (SS 2016): Introduction

In micro-fluidics, it is a common problem to calculate physical quantities related to a
certain volume of liquid. In the easiest case these values can be assumed constant over
the whole volume (e.g. the density of an incompressible fluid, the temperature after a
long time ). In those cases it is very easy to deduce other physical properties (e.g. the
mass of the whole liquid in the volume is simply the product of its density and the
volume; m V ).
But often you will have to deal with quantities that depend on the position inside the
volume (e.g. the density of air under gravity, the fluid velocity inside a flow channel ). In
this type of problems, you have to describe locally the value of the physical quantities
( (z ) where z is the altitude). In order to know the extensive properties (mass, energy,
momentum,) the method of volume integration has proven to be very useful. Due to its
repeated application in micro fluidics and other fields of science and engineering (and of
course in the exercises to this lecture), you should be really sure to have understood the
concept.
The idea of volume integration is
as follows:

a) You divide the volume V

into N suitable sub-volumes
V1 , V2 , V3 ,..., VN
b) You perform the necessary
calculation for each of
these sub-volumes
c) You add all the sub-results
to get the main result

As an example we calculate again the total mass mtot of some fluid inside a volume. This
time, the density is not constant over the whole volume. The total mass is:

Exercises Microfluidics: Effects and Phenomena SS 2016

Dr. Nils Paust, Dr. Matthias Meier, Prof. Roland Zengerle
Due: 28.4.2016
N

i 1

i 1

mtot mi i Vi

In this calculation, we assume the density i inside the sub-volume Vi to be constant. As

quantities in nature are quite always continuous this assumption is correct for small
enough sub-volumes (nevertheless it could be wrong for the global volume). Now, the
idea is to scale down the sub-volumes to an infinitesimal size V
dV and to replace
the discrete summation by a continuous integration:
N

ABC

i 1

0 0 0

...Vi ... dV ... dx dy d z .

By the way, this is totally analogue to the numerical simulation approach according to the
so called Finite-Volume-Method (FVM). For further details see lectures about simulation
and/or computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
Exercises:
The total thermal energy Q of a fluid is Q m c T , where m is the total mass, c the heat
capacity and T the absolute temperature.
1) Consider a box of the following size: width w = 11 cm; height h = 8 cm; depth
d = 7 cm. The box is filled with a fluid of the density 1g cm3 . The temperature of
the fluid changes along the x-coordinate and is given by the function
T ( x) 300K 1 K cm x . The heat capacity of the fluid is c 4.18 J ( K g ) .

Exercises Microfluidics: Effects and Phenomena SS 2016

Dr. Nils Paust, Dr. Matthias Meier, Prof. Roland Zengerle
Due: 28.4.2016

a) Sketch a set of subvolumes into the figure

that is adequate for this
problem.
b) Calculate the total heat
energy of the fluid.

2) Consider the same parameters as in exercise 1). In addition, now the density of the
fluid is no longer constant, but changes along the z-coordinate:
1 g

( z ) 1 0.125 z 3 .
cm cm

Exercises Microfluidics: Effects and Phenomena SS 2016

Dr. Nils Paust, Dr. Matthias Meier, Prof. Roland Zengerle
Due: 28.4.2016

a) Sketch a set of subvolumes into the figure

that is adequate for this
problem.
b) Calculate the total heat
energy of the fluid.

Note: This exercise sheet comprises 12 points in total. To achieve full points, it is
required to show the whole calculation in a comprehensible manner. Exercises
are only accepted after the lecture (before the exercise class) with this sheet on
the front page including full name and Matrikel-Nr.. Subsequent pages have to
be firmly attached to the first page and have to be labelled with the Matrikel-Nr..

Responsible for this exercise is:

Lukas Zielke,
Phone: +49 761 203-95083, Georges-Koehler-Allee 105/ Room 36,
lukas.zielke@imtek.de
If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact me.