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Related Concept Videos

Capillarity in Fluid01:19

Capillarity in Fluid

Capillarity describes the movement of liquid in small spaces without external forces acting on it. The capillarity is driven by surface tension and adhesive interactions between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces. This effect is often seen in narrow tubes, porous materials, and fine particles.
Surface tension is crucial to capillarity. It results from cohesive forces between liquid molecules at the liquid-air boundary, forming a skin that resists external forces. When the capillary tube...
Rise of Liquid in a Capillary Tube01:18

Rise of Liquid in a Capillary Tube

When very thin cylindrical tubes, called capillaries, are dipped in a liquid, the liquid rises or falls in the tube compared to the surrounding liquid. This phenomenon is called capillary action. Capillary action occurs due to the combination of two opposing forces: the cohesive forces of the liquid, which cause it to stick to itself and form a rounded shape, and the adhesive forces between the liquid and the walls of the container, which cause the liquid to be attracted to the container walls.
Laminar and Turbulent Flow01:07

Laminar and Turbulent Flow

Fluid dynamics is the study of fluids in motion. Velocity vectors are often used to illustrate fluid motion in applications like meteorology. For example, wind—the fluid motion of air in the atmosphere—can be represented by vectors indicating the speed and direction of the wind at any given point on a map. Another method for representing fluid motion is a streamline. A streamline represents the path of a small volume of fluid as it flows. When the flow pattern changes with time, the streamlines...
Capillary Exchange01:28

Capillary Exchange

The cardiovascular system's chief role is to disseminate gases, nutrients, waste, and other substances to the body's cells. Small molecules like gases, lipids, and lipid-soluble substances directly diffuse through capillary wall endothelial cell membranes. Glucose, amino acids, and ions, including sodium, potassium, calcium, and chloride, use transporters for facilitated diffusion via membrane-specific channels. Glucose, ions, and bigger molecules may also pass through intercellular clefts.
Capillary Beds01:20

Capillary Beds

Capillary beds are networks of tiny blood vessels that play a crucial role in the circulatory system. These beds are where the exchange of gases, nutrients, and waste products occurs between the blood and surrounding tissues. Each capillary bed consists of numerous capillaries, which are the smallest blood vessels in the body, typically only one cell-thick. This thinness allows for the efficient diffusion of substances.
Capillaries connect arterioles, small branches of arteries, to venules,...
Laminar Flow01:27

Laminar Flow

Laminar flow represents a smooth, orderly fluid motion where particles move along parallel paths, resulting in minimal mixing between layers. Streamlined particle paths characterize this flow regime and occur under conditions where viscous forces dominate over inertial forces. The distinction between laminar, transitional, and turbulent flow is primarily determined by the Reynolds number, a dimensionless quantity calculated as:

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Capillary-based Centrifugal Microfluidic Device for Size-controllable Formation of Monodisperse Microdroplets
08:20

Capillary-based Centrifugal Microfluidic Device for Size-controllable Formation of Monodisperse Microdroplets

Published on: February 22, 2016

Flow lines and mixing within drops in microcapillaries.

François Blanchette1

  • 1School of Natural Sciences, University of California-Merced, Merced, California 95343, USA.

Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
|April 7, 2010
PubMed
Summary

Recirculating flow regions within drops in capillaries hinder mixing. Larger drops and lower Reynolds numbers increase these regions, impacting fluid dynamics and mixing efficiency in microfluidic systems.

Area of Science:

  • Fluid dynamics
  • Microfluidics
  • Computational physics

Background:

  • Understanding fluid behavior in confined geometries is crucial for microfluidic applications.
  • Drops flowing in capillaries exhibit complex flow patterns influenced by geometry and fluid properties.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To theoretically and numerically investigate streamlines and mixing within drops flowing in capillaries.
  • To analyze the impact of drop size and Reynolds number on internal flow patterns.
  • To evaluate mixing efficiency under time-dependent shear conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical analysis of purely viscous flow for negligible drop radius.
  • Two-dimensional numerical simulations of streamlines for larger drops.
  • Modeling time-dependent shear flow to study mixing dynamics.

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Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
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Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures

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Analyzing Mixing Inhomogeneity in a Microfluidic Device by Microscale Schlieren Technique
10:12

Analyzing Mixing Inhomogeneity in a Microfluidic Device by Microscale Schlieren Technique

Published on: June 12, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Capillary-based Centrifugal Microfluidic Device for Size-controllable Formation of Monodisperse Microdroplets
08:20

Capillary-based Centrifugal Microfluidic Device for Size-controllable Formation of Monodisperse Microdroplets

Published on: February 22, 2016

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
10:56

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures

Published on: May 20, 2014

Analyzing Mixing Inhomogeneity in a Microfluidic Device by Microscale Schlieren Technique
10:12

Analyzing Mixing Inhomogeneity in a Microfluidic Device by Microscale Schlieren Technique

Published on: June 12, 2015

Main Results:

  • Geometrical constraints inherently create recirculating regions at the front and back of drops.
  • Recirculating toroidal regions grow with increasing drop size and decrease with increasing Reynolds number.
  • Cross-stream mixing is efficient, but streamwise mixing is impeded by the recirculating regions.

Conclusions:

  • Recirculating regions significantly affect internal mixing within drops.
  • Flow dynamics and mixing are highly sensitive to drop size and flow conditions.
  • The findings have implications for controlling mixing in microfluidic devices and processes.