Microfluidic Conveyer Belt

Nur Adilla Khairul Muzammil

University of Bristol
nk13073@my.bristol.ac.uk
April 2016

Acknowledgements
I would like to extend appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Bruce Drinkwater for the abundance of advices he has given to solve the problems encountered in the experiments and for the
encouragements given through out the duration of this research. I also want to thank Francisco
Gomes, my partner who has dutifully work alongside me with patience. Also to Mr Pradeep
Bhaskar and Mr Asier Marzo, I acknowledge all the help and resourceful inputs you have given
to help complete this project.

Declaration
The accompanying research project report entitled: Microfluidic Conveyer Belt is submitted in
the third year of study towards an application for the degree of Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol. The report is based upon independent work
by the candidate. All contributions from others have been acknowledged above. The supervisors are identified at the start of the report. The views expressed within the report are those of
the author and not of the University of Bristol.
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Work Allocation
Nur Adilla Khairul Muzammil Francisco Flores Sales Gomes
Research
Design
Manufacture
Test
Further MATLAB Modelling
Finite Element Modelling
I hereby confirm that the table above provides an accurate and fair representation of the
allocation of work between project group members.
Signed (author)

Full Name

Signed (project partner)

Full Name

Summary
This research is aimed towards the study of efficient transportation of particles via particle manipulation in a simple acoustic system. The system consists of a 16mm long and 2mm wide
channel contained within a small, chip- sized device to suit the microscale requirement of labon-a-chip technology. A pair of planar transducers are used to generate counter- propagating
traveling waves, their superposition creating standing waves. These standing waves contain
nodes that would act as the trapping points of particles. By creating relative phase and frequency difference to the two waves, position of the trapping points can be shifted and particles
can be conveyed. A range of particle sizes are used in the experiment, from 5m to 20m.
Both phase and frequency shift methods displayed good capability of transporting particles. In
order to compare the performance of the two methods, the average velocity of particles moving
from one end of the channel to the other was measured. It was observed that when other
parameters were kept constant, both methods show similar performances in terms of average
velocities of the particles. Some limitations were identified during the experiments, caused by
the presence of reflection and streaming forces in the system.

Contents
1
2

4
5
6

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Experimental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1
Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2
Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1
Apparatus and Materials . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.2
Transportation Methods . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1
Phase Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.2
Frequency Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.3
Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.4
Accumulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.5
Radiation force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Analytical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1
Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.1
Phase shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.2
Frequency shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1
Appendix A: Parameters for Gorkov Force Calculation

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25
27
30
30

List of Figures
1

3
4
5

6
7

8
9
10

11

12
13
14
15
16

An illustration of the resultant standing wave produced from interference of the

counter- propagating waves. The red circles represent particles being trapped
at the nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
An illustration of the setup used in Grinenko et al.s paper to reduce the amount
of reflection. By operating the device at through- thickness frequency, it was
found that less reflection is echoed into the channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Assembly of the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The device manufactured using laser cutter, with PZT and AAT attached to use
for experiments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Figure 5a shows one of the initial prototypes which failed to transport any particles due to the inability of fluid to move out of the inlet chamber. Figure 5b
shows another prototype produced by downsizing the final design, which failed
due to the near field effect of transducer occupying a large region of the channel.
An example of output graph from an electrical impedance test. . . . . . . . . .
The coupling of apparatus used during the experiment. The outputs from (7a)
synched signal generators were put into (7b) the device and (7c) an oscilloscope
for easier control of the signals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The figures show the change in nodes position as the phase is shifted from (8a)0
to (8b)/4 to (8c)/2 to (8d). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Beats produced from having counter- propagating waves with relative frequency
difference of 0.5Hz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
An image of the initial standing wave produced when opposing transducers
were activated. The particles used were flour. The amount of pixels between
two consecutive nodes was measured as 48 pixels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Stills taken from the phase shift video. Figure 11a shows the particles position
at = 0 and the consecutive stills were taken as the phase was increased to
= 2, shown in 11d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graph showing the relationship between phase shift and distance moved by
nodes for phase shift of 36 every 0.2 seconds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graphs of change in nodal position against time for a frequency shift for 0.5Hz
and 1 Hz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Trajectory of particles for 14a) different phase shift inputs and 14b) several
frequency difference inputs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graph showing the relationship between speed and voltage for 5 m particles
experiencing streaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Photos at two ends of the channel after frequency shift experiment was left
to run for about five minutes. One end clearly contained higher amount of
particles, proving accumulation. Figure 16b was taken near the transducer with
lower frequency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7
8
8

9
10

11
12
13

14

15
16
17
18
19

20

17

18

19

20

21

22
23

24

Calibration of force by fitting in the curve given by Equation 7 (red curve) to

the trajectory found experimentally (blue circles) for 17a) flour and 17b) 20 m
polybeads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Figure portrays the dimensions and principle of the model, where the blue lines
are nodal points that trap the particles. 142 blue lines were drawn to represent
71 number of waves. Since it is a one dimensional model, length in y-direction
is assumed negligible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Figure 19a shows the particle position as a function phase shift while Figure
19b, 19c and 19d shows the result for frequency difference. Consistent linear
trend could be seen in each graph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The graphs obtained from considering different amount of reflection coefficients in the system. The red curve was fitted into each graph to see which
would it correlates best to. This led to assumption that the device was subjected
to 0.2R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pressure field in the device generated analytically when phase shift is enforced
to the system, where the white and black regions correspond to high pressure
(antinodes) and low pressure (nodes) respectively. The deviation from linearity
as an effect of R = 0.2 is shown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Figure 22a, 22b are the graphs plotted to identify the maximum radiation force
exerted on the particles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pressure field in the device, viewed from the side to see how the pressure field
develops as it travels down the depth of the channel. This model was developed
by Francisco Sales Flores Gomes using a finite element (FE) software, Abaqus
to further analyse the behaviour of the system in 3D. The red and blue regions
represent the high and low pressure regions in the device respectively. . . . .
Graph showing the exponential decay of pressure amplitude owing to pressure
losses contributed by friction and energy dissipation as the waves travel through
the channel length, found in the FE model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 21

. 21

. 23

. 24

. 25
. 25

. 26

. 26

List of Tables
1
2
3
4
5

The frequency and impedance of the transducers found at the third mechanical
resonance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results from two different methods of particle transporting summarised. . . . .
Comparison of both methods in transporting particles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Velocity calculated for frequency shift method, when several frequency difference was applied to the system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Parameters used to calculate analytical radiation forces where [a] was obtained
from http://goo.gl/VA5p8e, [b] from http://goo.gl/vcAOQW and [c] from
http://goo.gl/TW9TgQ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14
16
18
23

30

Introduction

Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a technology that has been gaining heightened interests over the past
couple of decades [1]. The ability of miniaturising complex laboratory sequences onto a small
chip offers numerous benefits. Its requirement for only a small volume of reactants, portability,
ease of control over samples and cost efficiency are some of the benefits of this technology.
LOC integrates knowledge of microfluidics to enable practical applications in a broad range
of fields, from biomedical to material fabrication. A model system of microfluidic device
for medical purposes is designed in this work, aimed to study efficient means of transporting
particles. In order to quantify the ability of these mechanisms to carry out the specified task,
techniques of particle manipulation have been investigated.
Manipulation of particles has been studied extensively. Optical particle manipulation has been
demonstrated at microscopic level using laser beam. Such technique is known as optical
tweezer, which relies on optical gradient forces to grab and move objects of sizes from tens
of nanometers to tens of microns (Dholakia et al. 2002). Particle manipulation by means of
electric has also been established using a technique called dielectrophoresis. This technique
is driven by the presence of dipole moment due to generation of equal and opposite charges
at particle boundary (Diaz et al. 2013). While the aforementioned methods have undoubtedly
displayed successful outcomes, they are invasive methods which can potentially damage the
manipulated particles, especially if the particles were sensitive. A more suitable technique for
manipulation of particles like biological cells would be one that uses acoustic waves, which is
the technique discussed in this work.
To produce acoustic waves that would provide an ability to manipulate microparticles, transducers are activated with MHz frequencies. As a result, the transducers would output waves and
generate pressure fields. When a pair of oppositely- placed transducers are used, the counterpropagating traveling waves would interfere to produce standing waves. The points of zero
amplitude on the resultant standing wave, commonly known as the nodes, would act as the
trapping points for particles. These particles are subjected to acoustic radiation force, a force
which is induced by scattering of waves around the particle area. Bruus (2012) has derived the
expression for acoustic radiation force based on perturbation theory, following the approach
taken by Gorkov (1962) [2]. Note that his work neglected the presence of particle- particle
interaction as it was a study done using single- particle theory.
Equation 1 shows the expression for acoustic radiation force F rad on a spherical particle of
radius a, density p , and compressibility 0 suspended in an inviscid fluid of density 0 exposed
to a first- order standing acoustic wave pin and vin in the long wavelength limit  a. The
equation shows that force is essentially the gradient of acoustic potential U rad .

F rad = 5U rad


1
3
4 3
2
2
rad
U = a f1 0 hpin i f2 0 hvin i
3
2
4
p
=1 ,
with =
f1 ()
0
p
2( 1)
=
f2 ()
, with =
2( + 1
0
5

(1a)
(1b)
(1c)
(1d)

Figure 1: An illustration of the resultant standing wave produced from interference of the
counter- propagating waves. The red circles represent particles being trapped at the nodes.
With the radiation force exerted on particles to contain them within the trapping points, these
particles can be transported along the channel by employing relative phase or frequency shift
to the counter- propagating waves. Shifting the phase or frequency of one wave relative to the
other generate fluctuations in the nodal positions of the standing wave, simultaneously translocating the particles captured in the trapping points. Phase shifting method has been previously
analysed by Courtney et al. (2012), who employed two- dimensional particle manipulation
using five transducer and signals at 10 Vpp and 5MHz [3]. They displayed successful manipulation over a distance of 200 m. This current work focuses on the performance of particle
manipulation as a transporting agent, hence manipulation over a further distance is required.
Seo et al. (2013) has analysed the ability of frequency sweep to perform fluid filtration [4]. Using one transducer and a reflector, they demonstrated that by abruptly increasing the operating
frequency within a small bandwidth would force particles to jump to the nearest node. While
there is some common ground, their technique relied on continuous flow of fluid perpendicular
to the direction of particle manipulation to be able to direct the particles to desired locations.
Contrarily, this current work addressed the methods of transporting particles without any aid of
external flow generation.
The challenge with the methods demonstrated in this work is that the radiation force exerted
on the particles must be sufficiently large to counteract the drag force on the fluid. Another
problem could arise if reflection is present in the device. Grinenko et al. (2012) highlighted
a method of designing acoustic devices with the arrangement shown in Figure 2 to reduce
the amount of waves reflected back as they come in contact with the piezoelectric transducers (PZT) [5]. They derived an expression for reflection to be as follows, where ZB is the
impedance of the material behind the transducer and Zeff is the effective acoustic impedance of
the transducer itself:

R=

(ZB Zeff )
(ZB + Zeff )

(2)

Their research concluded that resonances in electric impedance exists at through- thickness
6

resonance of the transducer. These resonances were also found to give high force to source
voltage peak-to-peak ratio. Their most significant finding was that at these through- thickness
resonances, Zeff was found to approach the value of impedance of the backing material, ZB .
However, PZT plates are subjected to mechanical damping and electro- mechanical losses in
an active system. Taking these losses into consideration, Zeff was found to vary from ZB by a
small degree. This current paper used these findings to create a simple device with minimal
reflection.

Figure 2: An illustration of the setup used in Grinenko et al.s paper to reduce the amount
of reflection. By operating the device at through- thickness frequency, it was found that less
reflection is echoed into the channel.

2
2.1

Experimental
Device

A 1D model was designed using Autodesk Inventor. The idea behind the design is to keep the
geometry of the channel simple and straightforward while avoiding unexpected behaviour of
fluid flow. The channel is 16mm long and 2mm wide, sitting inside a plate of length 32mm,
15mm wide and 2mm deep. Figure 3 shows the assembly of the model. The green and blue
components are the main block of the prototype while the red and yellow components represent
the piezoelectric transducer (PZT) and acoustically absorbing tile (AAT) respectively. After the
main block of the model was designed, the prototype was manufactured by cutting out a piece
of acrylic with 2mm thickness.
To ensure precise cutting, a laser cutter was used. This also helped to reduce surface roughness
of the walls of the channel to minimise the pressure loss along the channel length. Clear
acrylic was chosen as the material for the main block to ease the process of observation under
microscope as well as to produce meaningful results out of the microscope camera, which only
output black and white images. The device was then fitted with two opposing PZT and AAT,
both glued on their sides to remain attached throughout the experiment. Figure 4 shows the
finished prototype.

Figure 3: Assembly of the model

Figure 4: The device manufactured using laser cutter, with PZT and AAT attached to use for
experiments.
Several other prototypes have been designed and tested prior to choosing the final design. Figure 5a shows one of the prototypes used for earlier stages of research. This design is more
complex than the final one and most of its features were discarded as the design was improved,
retaining some main features i.e. the channel. The circular areas were thought to act as inlet
and outlet chambers, where ideally, all the particles would be transported from one chamber
to another. This idea was later disregarded because fluid was unable to flow out of the inlet
chamber during the experiment. This could be attributed to the strong cohesive forces between
the fluid particles, overpowering the adhesive interaction between the fluid particles and walls
of the channel to prevent the fluid from flowing into the channel. Figure 5b shows another
prototype, done by downsizing the final device to suit its micro device claim better. However,
the smaller design was found to be less efficient, due to the near field effect of the transducers.

(a)

(b)

Figure 5: Figure 5a shows one of the initial prototypes which failed to transport any particles
due to the inability of fluid to move out of the inlet chamber. Figure 5b shows another prototype
produced by downsizing the final design, which failed due to the near field effect of transducer
occupying a large region of the channel.

2.2
2.2.1

Methods
Apparatus and Materials

1. Particles and medium

To analyse the ability of the device to transport particles, several experiments have been
conducted with different particle types. Since the device is aimed to contribute to the
lab-on-a-chip industry for medical diagnostic purposes, particles chosen should reflect
the characteristics of blood cell. The following particles were experimented with, their
suitability described:
(a) Flour
Flour was thought to be the most suitable experimental particles due to its close
resemblance to blood cells for having high variations of size (1 to 100 m) and
shape [6], besides being cheap and easily sourced. However, flour particles were
found to require a lot of stirring through out the experiment to deform the clumps.
They also tend to settle to the bottom quickly, which made it difficult for observations.
(b) Solid polystyrene spheres
Unlike flour, polyspheres settle relatively slower, allowing for clearer observations.
Due to their precise manufacturing procedures, they are more uniform in sizes thus
allowing each particle to be subjected to similar radiation force, producing good, repeatable results. They act as good models for cells due to their similarity in acoustic
properties and hence, have been used extensively for this purpose. However, they
are a lot more expensive and not as easily sourced compared to flour. Two different
polysphere sizes were used in the experiment, 5 m and 20 m. It is important to
note that the use of hollow polyspheres is not suitable for manipulation purposes
9

because they get attracted to the antinodal points rather than being trapped at the
nodes.
(c) Sand
Sand particles showed the least suitability for the purpose of this experiment. Due
to their high density, they settled to the bottom almost instantly and did not show
any response to the acoustic forces during the experiment.
The medium used through out the entire experiment was water, for it is easily sourced,
easy to use and exhibits low viscosity.
2. Piezoelectric transducer (PZT) and acoustically absorbing tile (AAT)
Planar transducers were used as they were easier to fit into the device, besides allowing
the design to be scalable and modular. Impedance test was ran on a set of transducers to determine their impedances and resonant frequencies. Figure 6 shows one of the
graphs produced by the impedance test. The frequency where the smallest magnitude of
impedance occur at third harmonics was noted, as this would be the operating frequency
of the device. This particular point on the impedance curve is known as the mechanical
resonance. At this frequency, the transducer would generate maximum amount of force,
which is desirable for the design purpose. The resonant frequency of each transducer was
compared, and a pair with most similar resonant frequencies were chosen. The third resonant frequency was chosen instead of the first, as there would be more trapping points
for the particles due to the shorter wavelength provided at this frequency. Using two
similar transducers is key to generate good standing waves and produce better trapping
points for the particles, besides minimising the reflection in the device. Small blocks of
AAT were glued to either ends of the channel to absorb the energy carried by incoming
waves, minimising the amount of waves reflected back towards the opposite end.

Figure 6: An example of output graph from an electrical impedance test.

3. Signal generator and oscilloscope
One of the most important steps in conducting the experiment is to ensure that the signal
generators connected to the two transducers were synchronised. This was done by referencing the time base of one generator to the other, making the former as the slave and
the latter as master. Only when this is done that the two signals would be synchronised,
eliminating drift and maintaining phase relationship of the two. To ensure that the two
signals were synchronised, an oscilloscope was used to show the outputted waveforms.
The two waveforms would appear stationary on the screen and have zero phase difference
if they were completely in sync, as shown if Figure 7c.

10

The device was provided with 10Vpp voltage, which is the maximum amount of voltage
the generators could output independently. This amount was found sufficient and no
external amplifier was needed, considering the fact that only a small magnitude of force
is required to move the particles.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 7: The coupling of apparatus used during the experiment. The outputs from (7a) synched
signal generators were put into (7b) the device and (7c) an oscilloscope for easier control of the
signals.

2.2.2

Transportation Methods

Three different methods of transporting the particles were experimented on- phase shift, frequency difference and streaming. The first two methods produced similar, promising results
while the third method was found to be less efficient. It is important to note that despite being
represented as sine waves, sound waves are in fact, longitudinal. They are commonly represented as sine waves due to the variations of pressure with time showing sinusoidal patterns.
1. Phase shift
Introducing a relative phase difference between two waves has been proven to achieve
11

particle manipulation. Changing the relative phase difference would cause the resultant
standing wave to shift in position, thus moving the point of traps of the particles. Figure
8 illustrates the working principle of phase shifting, where the blue and red waves are
propagating from opposite directions, creating the green waves as a result of superposition. In an ideal system, when the phase of one wave is shifted by , the nodal position
will be moved by /4.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 8: The figures show the change in nodes position as the phase is shifted from (8a)0 to
(8b)/4 to (8c)/2 to (8d).
To ensure that the phase is shifted uniformly through time in the experiment, a simple
code was written in Matlab and put into one of the generators so that phase shifting
process could be done remotely via a precoded program.
2. Frequency shift
The concept behind frequency shift is similar to that of the phase shift, except that this
method introduces a relative frequency difference to shift the nodal positions. When
two sound waves with relatively similar frequencies interfere one another, they create
beats [7]. Beats are characterized by their amplitude patterns, which vary from zero to
large then back to zero at periodic intervals. The frequency of these beats is the amount
of difference between the frequencies of the two interfering waves, f = | f1 f2 |. Figure
9 illustrates the beats produced by having a frequency difference of 0.5Hz. The beats
are seen to encounter zero pressure amplitude every 2 seconds, which ideally means the
nodes would travel by /2 in 2 seconds.

12

B e at fr e que nc y for f = 0.5H z

x 10
2

Pr e s s ur e , P [MHz ]

1.5

0.5

0.5

1.5

2
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

Time , t [s ]

Figure 9: Beats produced from having counter- propagating waves with relative frequency
difference of 0.5Hz.
3. Streaming
Presence of sound waves in the device generates mean mass flow and causes acoustic
streaming. [8] Due to the circulatory flow it generates, it could be considered as a means
of transporting particles.
4. Other alternatives
Aside from the three methods considered in the experiments, there are several other techniques of particle manipulation that have been studied previously.
(a) Mode switching [9]
This technique makes use of several resonant frequencies instead of fixing on a single frequency. To shift the nodes about different positions, the frequency is switched
between several resonant frequencies. Even though this technique enables spatial
shift of nodal positions, it is unfitting for the purpose of this research as it does not
direct the shift in a specific direction.
(b) Acoustic tweezers [10]
Similar to the concept of optical tweezer, acoustic tweezer uses acoustic energy
instead of optical energy to create particle manipulation. Focused ultrasound beam
acts as traps for the particles. Some requirements and limitations of this method
are that steep intensity variation and high operating frequency are required. For this
method to be effective, acoustic impedance of the particle must also be slightly less
than that of the surrounding medium.
(c) Linear arrays [11]
Planar resonator devices are used in this method, where an array of transducers are
placed opposite of a reflector to produce standing waves in the cavity between the
two. This method can be used to generate levitation and displacement, where the
latter is achieved by selectively switching consecutive transducers to move particles along the channel. The geometry of the device used for this method must be
thoughtfully selected, as the thickness of the fluid layer and reflector should agree
with the wavelength at the operating frequency.

13

2.3

Results

The results from impedance test conducted on the transducers used in the device are tabulated
as shown in Table 1. The impedances in air and water were found to vary by a small degree,
which implied that impedance is affected by the surrounding medium. The impedance in water
was decided to be more significant, since most of the surface area of the transducer would be
exposed to water as they sat in the device. The resonant frequencies of the pair of transducers
did not match each other exactly but were sufficiently close to produce good standing waves.
To settle on a good balance between the two different frequencies, they were averaged to give
a value of 6.61MHz which was the operating frequency used consistently in the experiment.

Mechanical resonance at 3rd harmonic

In air
In water
Frequency (MHz) Impedance (k) Frequency (MHz) Impedance (k)
Transducer 1
6.60800
338.91
6.60000
366.85
Transducer 2
6.62745
348.96
6.62157
345.91
Table 1: The frequency and impedance of the transducers found at the third mechanical resonance.
All observations were recorded using a microscope since this research dealt with microparticles
that were too small to be viewed directly. To capture the observations seen through the microscope, a software called Minisee (Minisee, 2015) was used and the videos were then processed
using a tracking software called Fiji [12]. The following results were obtained:

Figure 10: An image of the initial standing wave produced when opposing transducers were
activated. The particles used were flour. The amount of pixels between two consecutive nodes
was measured as 48 pixels.
Trapping of particles proved to be successful when the observation shown in Figure 10 was
recorded. This result was seen using high concentration of flour mixture. Flour particles were
successfully trapped in the nodes of standing waves due to presence of pressure gradient. To
produce results that would have meaningful physical representation, the pixels must be converted to appropriate length scales. This could be found using the equation relating wave speed,
frequency and wavelength:
14

c = f
c
=
f

(3)

Since the waves were known to travel at the speed of sound, c = 1482m/s [13], the wavelength
was calculated to be 224.04m, giving 112.02m as the value for half a wavelength. Equating
48 pixels to 112.02m, a conversion factor of 1mm 48 pixels was established.

2.3.1

Phase Shift

A phase shift of 2 was applied to the system to observe the motion of particles. The sequence
of images in Figure 11 shows the particles being shifted spatially with the nodes. However, only
the central region in the width of the channel was seen to display such motion. The regions near
the walls of the channel width show intriguing behavior, where they seemed to oscillate back
and forth rather than having a net movement. The potential causes of such results will be
discussed in the next section of this report.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 11: Stills taken from the phase shift video. Figure 11a shows the particles position at
= 0 and the consecutive stills were taken as the phase was increased to = 2, shown in
11d.
Motion of particles was studied by identifying the change in particle position as a function of
phase shift. They were then plotted against each other to see if there was a noticeable trend.
Figure 12 shows that when a line of best fit is plotted onto the graph, distance moved by the
15

nodes and phase shift were found to be linearly related. However, the actual trajectory did not
show complete linearity, and this was due to the presence of reflection in the system. These
results confirmed to previous findings, which concluded that the locus of the minimum value
of P(x) deviates from linearity with change in phase and reflection according to Equation 4.



1
R cos(2kxo ) 1
tan
x = arctan
(4)
k
R cos(2kxo ) + 1
2
where k is the wavenumber, R is reflection coefficient and xo is transducer separation.

Figure 12: Graph showing the relationship between phase shift and distance moved by nodes
for phase shift of 36 every 0.2 seconds.

2.3.2

Frequency Shift

Similar trends seen for phase shifting were observed in the second method, frequency shift.
The particles were found to move towards the direction of the transducer powered with lower
frequency due to superposition of the two waves producing a net motion following the wave
with bigger amplitude. To be able to compare the efficiency of phase shift and frequency shift
methods, the results for frequency shifts of 0.5Hz and 1Hz were produced and shown in Figure
13. Table 2 summarises the results.

Phase shift,
Frequency shift, f
every 0.2 seconds 0.5 Hz
1.0 Hz
98.09
101.30
181.10
2.00
2.00
2.00
49.04
50.65
90.55

36
Total distance (m)
Total time (s)
Average velocity (m/s)

Table 2: Results from two different methods of particle transporting summarised.

16

(a)

(b)

Figure 13: Graphs of change in nodal position against time for a frequency shift for 0.5Hz and
1 Hz.
Table 2 shows that the results for phase shifting of 36 every 0.2 seconds were similar to a
frequency shift of 0.5Hz. This is expected, as frequency and period are related by the following
equation:
1
T=
(5)
f
Hence a frequency of 0.5Hz would correspond to a period of 2 seconds, which is the time
taken for one complete cycle of sine wave. Knowing that one complete sine wave happens
in a revolution of 2, it can be assumed that a phase shift of 2 in 2 seconds is identical to
a frequency shift of 0.5 Hz. Table 3 compiled the average velocities recorded with different
frequency and phase shift inputs to identify the efficiency of both methods, calculated using the
trajectory shown in Figure 14.
Both methods show fairly similar capability in moving the particles. The discrepancies were
most probably caused by inconsistency of external variables i.e. using cables of different length,
cameras with different frame rate, etc. rather than the methods themselves. The absence of
results for phase shifting velocities higher than 347.22 m/s in Table 3 was due to the inability
of the tracking software to detect fast motion of particles at that stage.

17

Phase shift
Average velocity Time interval for
(m/s)
every 36 shift (sec)
52. 67
0.2
87.44
0.1
186.69
0.05
288.10
0.033
347.22
0.025
0.020
0.0167
0.0143
0.0125

Frequency difference
Average velocity
f (Hz)
(m/s)
0.5
50.60
1.0
90.54
2.0
175.72
3.0
243.03
4.0
306.05
5.0
378.05
6.0
444.07
7.0
519.76
8.0
581.03

Table 3: Comparison of both methods in transporting particles.

(a)

(b)

Figure 14: Trajectory of particles for 14a) different phase shift inputs and 14b) several frequency difference inputs.

18

2.3.3

Streaming

Despite its ability to provide motion to particles, streaming was found to be uncontrollable,
which is undesirable for the task of conveying. Different particle sizes were tested under similar experimental parameters to quantify the strength of streaming. Observations showed that
streaming became more significant as particle size decreased. This is due to the fact that radiation forces became weaker when smaller particles were used. The 5 m particles were therefore
deemed less suitable for phase shifting and frequency difference experiments.
The strength of streaming at different voltages were also investigated. 5m particles were used
due to their better response towards streaming. Expectedly, streaming would still be present at
low voltage. However, the effects of streaming did become less prominent as the magnitude
of supply voltage is reduced, as shown in Figure 15. It was also observed that using smaller
voltage would inevitably reduce the strength of radiation forces. Hence to achieve optimum
radiation force output, the system would have to possess good balance between the two.

Figure 15: Graph showing the relationship between speed and voltage for 5 m particles experiencing streaming.

2.3.4

Accumulation

To proof that a conveying system could be created by means of acoustic forces, accumulation
of particles was checked at the end of each experiment. Due to near field effects of transducers,
the particles could never quite reach the end of the channel to confirm the occurrence of accumulation. To overcome this problem and check for accumulation, these affected regions near
the transducers were filled with agar. The agar was also thought to be a good way of retaining
the accumulating particles from recirculating in the vortices caused by streaming.
Accumulation of particles could be observed near one end of the channel as shown in Figure 16.
It would be worth mentioning that accumulation was not consistently observed through out the
experiment, despite maintaining similar experimental parameters. In most cases, the amount of
particles deposited at either ends of the channel was fairly similar due to strong streaming in
the fluid and fast settling time of the particles.

19

(a)

(b)

Figure 16: Photos at two ends of the channel after frequency shift experiment was left to
run for about five minutes. One end clearly contained higher amount of particles, proving
accumulation. Figure 16b was taken near the transducer with lower frequency.
2.3.5

Radiation force

The trapping force exerted on the particles from scattering of waves was found using the technique explained by Courtney et. al [3]. Knowing that motion is provided by having a non- zero
net force, the equation of motion of the particles can be described as follows:
mx = F0 sin(2kx) 6 rx

(6)

where the first term on the right hand side is the force generated in a sinusoidal pressure field
while the second term is the Stokes drag acting on a spherical particle in a viscous fluid,
opposing the direction of motion. F0 is the maximum force that occurs at x = /8 (note that
every half cycle of pressure contains a full cycle of force so at this point, the particles would
experience maximum push), is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid and r is the radius of
particle. For an overdamped system, the solution of Equation 6 would be:



kF0
1
x = arctan tan(kXt=0 ) exp
t
(7)
k
3 r
where Xt=0 is the initial position of particle. The trapping force can be found by fitting the
curve given by Equation 7 through the trajectory found experimentally for a phase shift, of
as shown in Figure 17a. F0 was found to be 10 pN when flour particles were used. Similar
analysis was done for 20 m particles and shown in Figure 17. The resulting force was 50 pN.

20

60

50

x [m]

40

30

20

10

0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

Time t [s]

(b)

(a)

Figure 17: Calibration of force by fitting in the curve given by Equation 7 (red curve) to the
trajectory found experimentally (blue circles) for 17a) flour and 17b) 20 m polybeads.

Analytical Model

To confirm the validity of the results obtained experimentally, an analytical model was set
up. A 1D model would be sufficient as the device was meant to manipulate particles only in
the x-direction. One should be aware that analytical and experimental results would not be
completely similar. Analytical model considers an ideal situation of the system as opposed
to in reality, where similar ideal conditions could never be achieved due to persistent external
factors influencing the results of the experiments. However, both results should exhibit similar
trends that agree with existing theory. Matlab [14] was used to create the analytical model.
Parameters similar to those subjected experimentally were inputted into the analytical model to
produce results that would best predict the experimental behaviour.

Figure 18: Figure portrays the dimensions and principle of the model, where the blue lines are
nodal points that trap the particles. 142 blue lines were drawn to represent 71 number of waves.
Since it is a one dimensional model, length in y-direction is assumed negligible.

21

3.1
3.1.1

Methods
Phase shift

The standing wave generated from superposition of two oppositely traveling waves could be
modeled by using the following equations [3]:
P1 (x,t) =P0 [eik(x+x0 ) + Reik(x3x0 ) ]eit
=P0 eikx0 [2 cos(kx) + (Rei2kx0 1)eikx ]eit

(8)

where P1 is the pressure field formed due to the transducer at x = x0 . Note that only primary
reflections were considered in these analytical equations. The pressure field, P2 produced by
the transducer at another end, x = xo could be expressed as:
P2 (x,t) =P0 [eik(xx0 ) + Reik(x+3x0 ) ]eit
=P0 eikx0 [2 cos(kx) + (Rei2kx0 1)eikx ]eit

(9)

The time dependence term could be omitted from analysis since the frequency of the two waves
were kept constant in this particular method, causing these terms to be insignificant. An arbitrary phase difference was introduced into the equations to give the total field, P(x).
P(x) =P1 ei /2 + P2 ei /2



 

i2kx0
ikx0
+ (Re
1) cos kx
=2P0 e
2 cos(kx) cos
2
2

(10)

Using the equations above to generate the resultant pressure field from the summation of two
individual waves, the fundamental block of the analytical system were set up. This resultant
field can be portrayed from the graph of phase difference against nodal position. Since nodal
positions change with respect to phase difference, a loop was created in Matlab where in each
loop, the phase difference would be shifted by 36 and the spatial positions where P(x) is within
a certain range close to zero were found.
3.1.2

Frequency shift

To model the response of pressure field with respect to a relative difference in frequency, the
time dependence term should not be neglected since wave frequency is a function of the time
dependence term. Trigonometric expressions were used instead of exponential for easier summation of the two pressure fields.
P1 (x,t) =P0 [cos(k1 x1 + 1t + 1 )]
P2 (x,t) =P0 [cos(k2 x2 + 2t + 2 )]

(11)
(12)

Summing up the two pressure fields using trigonometric identities and dropping phase dependence term, the total pressure field can be expressed as follows.
P(x) =P1 + P2





k1 + k2
1 + 2
k1 k2
1 2
=2P0 cos
x+
t cos
x+
t
2
2
2
2

(13)

The first cosine terms represent the fast, oscillating parts of the resultant wave while the second
cosine term is the part that would produce a net motion due to the difference in frequency.
22

3.2

Results

To confirm that the analytical results would show linear trends in position change with phase
and frequency shift, the following graphs were plotted for the case where no reflection is present
in the system. Figure 19b, 19c, 19d were plotted at intervals of 0.1s for every time step. Since
the loop was performed for 10 steps, the graphs depict the movement of nodal position in 1
second. The velocity for each frequency difference was calculated and tabulated in Table 4. It
could clearly be seen that the analytical values are of two order of magnitudes bigger than the
ones found experimentally. This is most probably due to error in sampling the wave, where the
time step is too high to capture each cycle of the wave.
Frequency difference, f
0.5 Hz 1.0 Hz 2.0 Hz
Distance traveled (mm)
6.75
13.50
18.00
Total time (s)
1.0
1.0
0.6
Average velocity (mm/s) 6.75
13.50
30.00
Table 4: Velocity calculated for frequency shift method, when several frequency difference was
applied to the system.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 19: Figure 19a shows the particle position as a function phase shift while Figure 19b,
19c and 19d shows the result for frequency difference. Consistent linear trend could be seen in
each graph.

23

Observations from the experiments showed that the trajectory of the particles had some deviations from linearity, due to the presence of reflection in the device. To identify the amount of
reflection in the device, similar results to those shown in Figure 19 were produced, but with
different amount of reflection coefficient to see which would produce similar trajectory as to
those acquired experimentally.
This was done by fitting the trajectory curve from experimental data into those calculated analytically. Figure 20 shows the graphs produced. The red curve was extracted from the experimental data of 2 phase shift and fitted into analytical graphs of 0.5Hz frequency difference,
using the former assumption that the two are comparable to one another. Looking at the graphs,
it can be agreed that the experimental curve matches the analytical curve for reflection coefficient of R = 0.2 best. Hence, it was concluded that the device was subjected to a reflection
coefficient of 0.2.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 20: The graphs obtained from considering different amount of reflection coefficients in
the system. The red curve was fitted into each graph to see which would it correlates best to.
This led to assumption that the device was subjected to 0.2R.
Using a simplification of Equation 1, the analytical radiation force can be found. The parameters used in the equation are given in Appendix A. This force is plotted as a function of pressure
gradient and shown in Figure 22a and 22b for flour and 20 m polybeads particles respectively.
The maximum radiation forces were found to be 8 pN for flour particles and 43 pN for the
20 m polybeads. These findings confirmed to the forces identified experimentally, varying by
a small degree of 14%.
24

Figure 21: Pressure field in the device generated analytically when phase shift is enforced to
the system, where the white and black regions correspond to high pressure (antinodes) and low
pressure (nodes) respectively. The deviation from linearity as an effect of R = 0.2 is shown.
1

10 -11

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-1

-0.4

-2

-0.6

-3

-0.8

-4

-1

10 -11

-5
-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

5
10

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

-4

5
10

(a)

-4

(b)

Figure 22: Figure 22a, 22b are the graphs plotted to identify the maximum radiation force
exerted on the particles.

Discussion

The device mostly behaved in predicted ways, matching the results seen from analytical model.
Phase shift and frequency difference both proved to be capable of performing particle manipulation. However, there were several limitations to these methods. If the particles were to
be delivered through the channel in a short time and high velocity is needed, a big phase or
frequency difference between the two counter- propagating planar waves would cause the radiation forces to be less effective due to rapid changes in pressure gradient of the standing
waves. The limiting frequency difference found from experiments were 8Hz. Any higher than
this, the particles were observed to vibrate about fixed positions. This corresponds to a limit
in phase shift of 36 every 0.0125 seconds. Another limitation of these methods happens at
the point where the two waves interfere destructively, causing the resultant standing wave to
have zero magnitude everywhere. The pre- existing trapping points would disappear at this
instance, causing all the formerly trapped particles to be released. This surely acts as a setback
to the transporting mechanism. To ensure that this does not arise in the device, the phase and
frequency shift methods should be programmed to avoid any destructive interference, which is
25

known to occur when the relative phase difference is /2.

Accumulation was not consistently observed in the experimental results. Several possibilities
were identified. The presence of retardation force on particles near the walls due to wall effects
is a possible cause of accumulation failure. Usually, the boundary layer thickness for fluid
flow through plates would be too small to be noticed under observations. However, a study
has shown that small bed-to-particle diameter ratios in a confined region would extend the wall
effects further away from the wall [15]. This effect is aggravated with the presence of secondary
radiation force, which tends to agglomerate particles near the walls. As a result, less particles
could be transported along the channel. Agglomeration of particles can potentially be inhibited
by using particles with mean radius that deviates from their resonance radius [16], according
to a paper by Zhang (2011). Figure 23 shows the side view of simulated pressure field. Similar
wall absorption could be observed in the model.

Figure 23: Pressure field in the device, viewed from the side to see how the pressure field develops as it travels down the depth of the channel. This model was developed by Francisco Sales
Flores Gomes using a finite element (FE) software, Abaqus to further analyse the behaviour of
the system in 3D. The red and blue regions represent the high and low pressure regions in the
device respectively.

Figure 24: Graph showing the exponential decay of pressure amplitude owing to pressure losses
contributed by friction and energy dissipation as the waves travel through the channel length,
found in the FE model.
The oscillations of particles observed in the region near the face of the transducer is also an
undesirable effect. Ideally, the particles should be able to shift until the end of the channel
where the transducers are placed, to generate accumulation. Figure 24 shows the decay of
pressure magnitude with distance from the transducers. Evidently, the magnitude of pressure at
one end of the channel attributed to the source transducer would be small, limiting the pressure
gradient due to formation of standing waves with small amplitude. Variations in amplitude of
26

sound waves at the near field regions [17] also reduce the quality of standing waves formed
near the transducers. A prototype with shorter channel length as shown in Figure 5b would
be a good way of reducing the pressure drop but the presence of near field effects would still
withstand and become more noticeable with reduction in channel length.
Streaming is an effect of nonlinear second order radiation and is impossible to eliminate. This
acts as an obstacle for efficient transportation and disrupts the process of accumulation as
streaming induces convective drag and forces the particles that were being transported to recirculate, bringing them to undesirable positions. The effects of streaming were observed to
be especially significant on smaller particles, since they are not as largely affected by radiation
forces due to their small radius as shown in Figure 22. Streaming would be useful in pumping
and mixing application, which is not the purpose of this research.
Another difficulty faced was the fast sedimentation time of the particles. Levitation has commonly been used to lift particles off the ground and would be a great modification to the current
device. However, since the device requires microscopic observation, the levitating mechanism
should be innovated in such a way that it does not interrupt observation process.

Conclusion

Particle manipulation has been found to be coherently achievable using acoustic waves. The
experimental work done on the microfluidic device designed produced promising results for
particle transport application. Three different methods were applied to the system and each of
them was compared. Phase shifting and frequency difference methods, which both utilised the
superposition of two counter- propagating waves established good results. The results from
both methods showed closed correlation. An introduction of 0.5 Hz frequency difference to the
system produced similar results to a phase shift of 2 in 1 second, and this relationship was
observed to be similar at any other frequencies. The two methods are bounded by the dependency of period to frequency in a cycle of sinusoidal wave. The ability of acoustic waves to
trap and manipulate particles is provided by acoustic radiation force, created by wave scattering
phenomenon. The strength of these forces was found to vary with particle sizes. Bigger particles would experience bigger trapping force, while smaller particles were subjected to weaker
forces, making them vulnerable to the vortices formed due to streaming. Streaming proved to
be an obstacle to the task of transporting particles, its presence caused some particles, especially smaller ones, to escape the traps formed at the nodes of standing waves and recirculate.
As a result, accumulation of particles was not consistently observed in the experiments. Since
the success of conveying mechanism is quantified by the amount of accumulation at one end of
the channel, in the event where accumulation could not be observed, the experiment is deemed
to have failed. An important note to make is that the experimental results were highly affected by the coupling of apparatus. Longer cables would provide bigger resistance and hence
the waves outputted would experience a reduction in amplitude, which affects the gradient of
pressure amplitude, simultaneously affecting the strength of radiation forces produced. If any
future work were to be conducted, these external factors must be considered and the setup of the
experiment should be kept constant throughout. Levitating mechanism would also be a good
addition to the device, to reduce the retarding force and provide better motion for the particles.

27

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29

6
6.1

Appendices
Appendix A: Parameters for Gorkov Force Calculation
Water Flour particles 5 m polybeads 20 m polybeads
Radius (m)
5
2.5
10
3
[b]
[c]
Density (kg/m )
1000
593
1050
1050
Speed of sound (m/s) 1482
1482
2400[a]
2400[a]

Table 5: Parameters used to calculate analytical radiation forces where [a] was obtained from
http://goo.gl/VA5p8e, [b] from http://goo.gl/vcAOQW and [c] from http://goo.gl/
TW9TgQ.