Isogeometric Boundary Element Formulation for Droplets in Microchannel Confinement

The simulation of droplet motion with microchannel confinement holds critical significance in many microfluidic applications. However, accurately modeling of the droplet motion poses challenges, primarily due to the complex deformation of the interface. In this study, we propose an isogeometric boundary element formulation to address this issue and simulate droplet motion within confined flows. The proposed formulation employs B-spline basis functions to represent geometry as well as the field variables. To ensure stable and accurate simulations without the need for high fidelity simulations, we have implemented volume correction and mesh relaxation algorithms. The accuracy of the formulation is tested on the deformation of the droplet between parallel plates problem. We have assessed the performance of the proposed formulation on droplet motion in a microchannel. In addition, a comparative analysis between rigid particle and droplet is also included. The proposed approach offers a promising technique for reliably analyzing droplet motion in microchannel systems and can be extended to model different types of deformable particles (e.g., inextensible membrane, red blood cell, etc.).