Fluid Velocity Optimization in a Computational Lab-on-Chip Model for Cellular Analysis

The research domain of lab-on-chip devices has been at the forefront in biomedical applications. We present a study which focuses on fluid velocity optimization in a computational lab-on-chip model designed for cellular analysis. It emphasizes the influence of key geometric parameters: porosity, channel width, and sieve angle. A parametric COMSOL simulation evaluates velocity profiles with and without porous media, identifying parameters with the highest impact on fluid velocity and optimizing flow conditions to ensure an adequate response for downstream sensor performance. The lab-on-chip model is parametrized to feature channel widths and sieve angles systematically varied to achieve a target velocity in a channel of length of 32.5 mm, with height and width of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$0.5 \mu ~\mathrm{m}$</tex> and 10 mm. The porosity was varied between 0.1 and 0.9. Geometric variations and porous media effects are analyzed to quantify their impact on flow dynamics. As prototyping of lab-on-chip devices can be a lengthy and expensive process, this step presents a muchneeded antecedent. The results highlight the crucial geometric parameter for achieving optimized fluid velocity, critical for precise analyte transport. Finally, this study contributes to the development of lab-on-chip devices with enhanced performance in biomedical applications.