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Doctoral thesis viva voce : Nicolas Champagne

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Contact : nicolas.champagne@espci.fr

6 October 2011 8:30 » 13:00 — Holweck lecture theater

Traffic dynamics in microfluidc networks : Jams, Shocks and Avalanches

Nicolas Champagne, doctorant Crédits : ESPCI ParisTech
Nicolas Champagne, doctorant Crédits : ESPCI ParisTech

This thesis is devoted to the transport of particles in confined geometries. An original approach is developed, based on new home-made microfluidic tools. First, we study the traffic of particles in microfluidic obstacles networks. Due to hydrodynamics interactions between particles, we show that the traffic dynamics is a nonlinear process: the particle current does not scale with the particle density. We also establish that there exists a maximal current above which no stationary particle flow can be sustained.

Then, we study the dynamic response of 1D droplet streams to finite-amplitude longitudinal perturbations. We experimentally and theoretically show that the nonlinear constitutive equation relating particle current to particle density leads to Burgers equation for the droplet stream density.

Afterwards, we focus on the flow resulting from high current values in a 2D obstacles network. We observe an intermittent dynamics with avalanche phenomena. To rationalize this, we develop a numerical code close to a cellular automaton. This numerical model turns out to be effective to represent the flow of confined particles in a network of pipes.

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