Active micromixer based on artificial cilia

We propose a design for an active micromixer that is inspired by the motion of ciliated micro-organisms occurring in nature. The conceptual design consists of an array of individually addressable artificial cilia in the form of microactuators covering the channel wall. The microactuators can be set into motion by an external stimulus such as an electric or a magnetic field, inducing either a primary or secondary motion in the surrounding fluid. To validate the concept and to help to design the precise mixer configuration, we developed a computational fluid-structure model. This model is based on a fictitious domain method that couples the microactuator motion to the concomitant fluid flow, fully capturing the mutual fluid-structure interactions. The simulated flow patterns resulting from the motion of single and multiple actuated elements (in a microchannel filled with a Newtonian fluid) under the action of a time-periodic forcing function are analyzed using dynamical systems theory to quantify the mixing...