Oscillatory flow in microchannels - Comparison of exact and approximate impedance models with experiments

Commonly used, lumped-parameter expressions for the impedance of an incompressible viscous fluid subjected to harmonic oscillations in a channel were compared with exact expressions, based on solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for slots and channels of circular and rectangular cross-section, and were found to differ by as much as 30% in amplitude. These differences resulted in predicted discrepancies by as much as 400% in frequency response amplitude for simple second-order systems based on size scales and frequencies encountered in microfluidic devices. These predictions were verified experimentally for rectangular microchannels and indicate that underdamped fluidic systems operating near the corner frequency of any included flow channel should be modeled with exact expressions for impedance to avoid potentially large errors in predicted behavior.