This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.Microfluidic bifurcating networks of rectangular cross-sectional channels are designed
using a novel biomimetic rule, based on Murray’s law. Murray’s principle is extended to
consider the flow of power-law fluids in planar geometries (i.e. of constant depth rectangular
cross-section) typical of lab-on-a-chip applications. The proposed design offers the ability to
control precisely the shear-stress distributions and to predict the flow resistance along the network.
We use an in-house code to perform computational fluid dynamics simulations in order
to assess the extent of the validity of the proposed design for Newtonian, shear-thinning and
shear-thickening fluids under different flow conditions
