A mesoscopic simulation study of distributions of droplets in a bifurcating channel

A transport of a suspension of slightly deformed immiscible droplets in a bifurcating channel is studied by using a mesoscale simulation technique. The distribution of the droplets is represented by the fractional droplet flux into two daughters as a function of the volumetric flow ratio between the daughters. The data obtained in our simulations is compared with theoretical predictions obtained by assuming an exponential function for the distribution for positions of the droplets in the mother channel. The theoretical predictions show good agreement with the simulation results. Further, we compare our results with an experimental study of transports of spherical and disk-shaped particles in a bifurcating channel, and we confirm that our results show the same tendency towards non-linearity as the experimental result do. A non-uniform distribution of the droplets in the mother channel affects the non-linear separation of the droplet flux at the bifurcation. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.