Modeling the closing behavior of a smart hydrogel micro-valve

Abstract

Smart hydrogel micro-valves are essential components of micro-chemo-mechanical fluid systems. These valves are based on phase-changeable polymers. They can open and close micro-fluidic channels depending on the chemical concentration or the temperature in the fluid. A concept of finite element–based modeling in combination with network methods to simulate concentration-triggered, phase-changeable hydrogels is proposed. We introduce a temperature domain as a replication domain to substitute insufficiently implemented domains. With the used simulation tools, problems are highlighted and their solutions are presented. The computed parameters of such valves are included in a circuit representation, which is capable of efficiently computing large-scale micro-fluidic systems. These methods will help predict, visualize, and understand polymeric swelling behavior as well as the performance of large-scale chip applications before any complex experiment is performed.