Exploring Microfluidic Design Automation: Thin-wall Membrane Regulator

Microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip are a growing technology, influential in many areas of engineering. This project focuses on the necessity for better computer aided design tools for this area. Specifically, it focuses on the automated synthesis of T-junction components with thin-walled membranes for stability. A T-junction is a passive droplet generation component, common in microfluidics which suffers from behavior instability in highly integrated circuits with many components. One way of improving stability is using flexible membranes to mitigate pressure perturbations. This thesis describes the design process of such membranes so that a model can be used to synthesize stable T-junctions. The thesis also discusses Manifold, a software framework for automated synthesis of microfluidic circuits. This is the framework where the design process fits in. To compare the result of the software framework with the analytic model described, physical circuits were fabricated to validate the accuracy of the analytic model and the software. Besides the T-junction, another microfluidics component that was investigated was a “Capillary Electrophoresis Channel”. This component was also investigated with respect to automated synthesis and verification using the Manifold framework, and the details are discussed

Expanding the Microfluidic Design Automation Capabilities of Manifold: Electrophoretic Cross and Time-Domain Simulation

Lab-on-a-chip devices are finding applications in several different fields, from point-of-care diagnostics to genome sequencing. However, lab-on-a-chip is a multidimensional field that makes it difficult for designers to have a full understanding of the entire system. There currently lacks a computer aided design (CAD) tool that allows microfluidic designers to express partial designs, only defining the parts of the system that they know and the tool determines the rest of the system while still ensuring the device will operate as expected. This results in devices being tested by physically constructing them and performing multiple design iterations should the prototype fail to operate correctly, increasing the time and cost of microfluidic design. The Manifold language was developed to address this problem by allowing the microfluidic designer to specify the parameters that they know and then Manifold solves for the ranges that the rest of the parameters can take, reducing the cognitive load required to design microfluidic devices. This thesis discusses the improvements that were made to Manifold's design capabilities to create Manifold V3.0: the addition of electrophoretic cross channel simulation and the ability to simulate designs in the time-domain in MapleSim through the use of Modelica. The Modelica design is generated automatically, creating a feedback loop that allows the designer to see their microfluidic device in operation before manufacturing a prototype. Finally, a preliminary validation of the software was performed through the comparison of Manifold's simulations to historical data collected from real microfluidic devices. This validation was structured as seven research questions that are asked of Manifold and they are each worked through using the historical data to determine if Manifold is able to answer these questions