Aggregation and clogging phenomena of rigid microparticles in microfluidics: Comparison of a discrete element method (DEM) and CFD-DEM coupling method.

We developed a numerical tool to investigate the phenomena of aggregation and clogging of rigid microparticles suspended in a Newtonian fluid transported through a straight microchannel. In a first step, we implement a time-dependent one-way coupling Discrete Element Method (DEM) technique to simulate the movement and effect of adhesion on rigid microparticles in two- and three-dimensional computational domains. The Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory of adhesion is applied to investigate the contact mechanics of particle-particle and particle-wall interactions. Using the one-way coupled solver, the agglomeration, aggregation and deposition behavior of the microparticles is studied by varying the Reynolds number and the particle adhesion. In a second step, we apply a two-way coupling CFD-DEM approach, which solves the equation of motion for each particle, and transfers the force field corresponding to particle-fluid interactions to the CFD toolbox OpenFOAM. Results for the one-way (DEM) and two-way (CFD-DEM) coupling techniques are compared in terms of aggregate size, aggregate percentages, spatial and temporal evaluation of aggregates in 2D and 3D. We conclude that two-way coupling is the more realistic approach, which can accurately capture the particle-fluid dynamics in microfluidic applications.