Les écoulements gaz-liquide constituent un axe de recherche très actif en microfluidique. Le rapport des débits entre les deux phases, la formation de bulles et les champs de vitesse des microcanaux ont été étudiés dans cette thèse, en utilisant une caméra numérique rapide et un microsystème de Particule Image Velocimetry (micro-PIV). En particulier, le diagramme des phases gaz-liquide ont été établi dans des microcanaux carrés ; la formation des bulles en fluides tant newtoniens que non newtoniens a été étudiée en détail dans plusieurs configurations géométriques telles que T-injonction et flow-focusing. Les mécanismes régissant la formation d'une bulle ont été modélisés pour chaque étape : expansion, amincissement et rupture. L'étape amincissement de la traînée d'une bulle est notamment contrôlée par une pression orthogonale qui dépend du débit du liquide. Dans le cadre de flow-focusing, le mécanisme de la rupture du film gazeux peut être décrit par une loi d'échelle reliant l'épaisseur minimale du film au temps restant juste avant la rupture avec un exposant 1/3. Le caractère non newtonien de fluides PAAm allonge la traînée d'une bulle par rapport aux fluides newtoniens. Enfin, l'étude de la coalescence entre bulles a été entreprise à l'échelle microscopique ainsi que le comportement complexe des trains de bulles dans des réseaux de microcannaux / Gas-liquid two-phase flow is an important research project in microfluidics. The gas-liquid two-phase flow, the bubble formation and moving behaviours in microchannels were investigated, by using a high speed digital camera and a micro Particle Image Velocimetry (micro-PIV). The gas-liquid two-phase flow in vertical rectangular microchannels was investigated and a flow pattern map was constructed; the bubble formation in both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids in cross-flowing microfluidic T-junctions and flow-focusing devices was investigated; the bubble formation process could be divided into expansion, collapse and pinch-off stages; the collapse speed of the gaseous thread in the second stage is controlled by the squeezing pressure, and is proportional to the liquid flow rates; while the minimum width of the neck of the gaseous thread in the third stage for bubble formation in flow-focusing devices could be scaled with the remaining time to the ultimate pinch-off as a power law relationship with an exponent of 1/3; the PAAm solutions prolong the gaseous thread in the tangential direction of the neck; bubble coalescence in a microchannel with an expansion section was studied; the bubble behavior in a microchannel with a loop was also investigated

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A stacked microchannel heat sink was developed to provide efficient cooling for microelectronics devices at a relatively low pressure drop while maintaining chip temperature uniformity. Microfabrication techniques were employed to fabricate the stacked microchannel structure, and experiments were conducted to study its thermal performance. A total thermal resistance of less than 0.1 K/W was demonstrated for both counter flow and parallel flow configurations. The effects of flow direction and interlayer flow rate ratio were investigated. It was found that for the low flow rate range the parallel flow arrangement results in a better overall thermal performance than the counter flow arrangement; whereas, for the large flow rate range, the total thermal resistances for both the counter flow and parallel flow configurations are indistinguishable. On the other hand, the counter flow arrangement provides better temperature uniformity for the entire flow rate range tested. The effects of localized heating on the overall thermal performance were examined by selectively applying electrical power to the heaters. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the conjugate heat transfer inside the stacked microchannels. Negative heat flux conditions were found near the outlets of the microchannels for the counter flow arrangement. This is particularly evident for small flow rates. The numerical results clearly explain why the total thermal resistance for counter flow arrangement is larger than that for the parallel flow at low flow rates. In addition, laminar flow inside the microchannels were characterized using Micro-PIV techniques. Microchannels of different width were fabricated in silicon, the smallest channel measuring 34 mm in width. Measurements were conducted at various channel depths. Measured velocity profiles at these depths were found to be in reasonable agreement with laminar flow theory. Micro-PIV measurement found that the maximum velocity is shifted significantly towards the top of the microchannels due to the sidewall slope, a common issue faced with DRIE etching. Numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of the sidewall slope on the flow and heat transfer. The results show that the effects of large sidewall slope on heat transfer are significant; whereas, the effects on pressure drop are not as pronounced.

The condition of no relative velocity of fluid past solid is termed as ‘no-slip boundary condition’. This condition is a general observation in fluid mechanics. However, several research groups have recently reported slip of water for surfaces with water repelling chemistry (referred to as hydrophobic surfaces). The effect has been attributed to disruption of H-bonding network of water molecules at such surfaces and resulting nucleation of dissolved gases and even reduced water density locally in absence of dissolved air. Slip of water on hydrophobic surfaces has been demonstrated to get amplified by high degree of roughness and patterning. Trapping of air in the surface asperities has been cited as the possible reason. The present work focuses on the study of effect of surface chemistry and roughness on flow behavior close to solid surfaces. Superhydrophobic surfaces have been generated by novel methods and wet-etching has been used to generate well-defined patterns on silicon surfaces. For flow characterisation, a micrometre resolution Particle Image Velocimetry (micro-PIV) facility has been developed and flow measurements have been carried out with a spatial resolution of less than 4 µm. It has been found from the experiments that flow of water on smooth surfaces, with or without chemical modification, conforms to the no-slip within the resolution limits of experiments. Deviation is observed in case of rough and patterned hydrophobic surfaces, possibly because of trapped air in asperities. Total Internal Reflection experiments, used to visualise the air pockets, confirmed the trapping of air at asperities. Diffusion of air out of the crevices seems to be the limiting factor for the utility of these surfaces in under-water applications.

This work presents the development and analysis of a system that combines the concepts of light field microscopy and particle image velocimetry (PIV) to measure three-dimensional velocities within a microvolume. Rectanglar microchannels were fabricated with dimensions on the order of 350-950 micrometers using a photolithographic process and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The flow was seeded with fluorescent particles and pumped through microchannels at Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.016 to 0.028. Flow at Reynolds numbers in the range of 0.02 to 0.03 was seeded with fluorescent particles and pumped through microchannels. A light field microscope with a lateral resolution of 6.25 micrometers and an axial resolution of 15.5 micrometers was designed and built based on the concepts described by Levoy et al. Light field images were captured continuously at a frame rate of 3.9 frames per second using a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera. Each image was post processed to render a stack of two-dimensional images. The focal stacks were further post processed using various methods including bandpass filtering, 3D deconvolution, and intensity-based thresholding, to remove effects of diffraction and blurring. Subsequently, a multi-pass, three-dimensional PIV algorithm was used to measure channel velocities. Results from PIV analysis were compared with an analytical solution for fully-developed cases, and with CFD simulations for developing flows. Relative errors for fully-developed flow measurements, within the light field microscope refocusing range, were approximately 5% or less. Overall, the main limitations are the reduction in lateral resolution, and the somewhat low axial resolution. Advantages include the relatively low cost, ease of incorporation into existing micro-PIV systems, simple self-calibration process, and potential for resolving instantaneous three-dimensional velocities in a microvolume.