Development of microfluidic circuits that are analogous to electronic circuits is useful because of their potential to drastically reduce dynamic off-chip controllers. In microfluidic circuits, a microfluidic oscillator that converts constant input to pulsatile output is the key component. Here, we apply a constant inflow to our previous constant pressure-driven oscillator and demonstrate its distinct behavior. The outflow of the oscillator has a pulse-duration period ( $T_{\textrm {D}}$ ) and a pulse-rest period ( $T_{\textrm {R}}$ ) at a low inflow rate of 20– $120~\mu \text{L}$ /min. In this range of inflow rates, the pulse number of $T_{\textrm {D}}$ increased, and $T_{\textrm {R}}$ decreased. In each $T_{\textrm {D}}$ , the maximum value of each pulse sequentially decreased. On the other hand, at a high inflow rate of 140– $260~\mu \text{L}$ /min, the oscillator produced a continuous sawtooth pulsatile flow without $T_{\textrm {R}}$ . Our theoretical model reveals that average increase and decrease rates of the inlet pressure are critical parameters for determining the output pulse behaviors. Our study is useful and provides a foundation for developing microfluidic circuits using the electrofluidic analogy. [2019-0193]

中文翻译：

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恒流驱动微流体振荡器的表征

类似于电子电路的微流体电路的开发很有用，因为它们有可能大大减少动态片外控制器。在微流体电路中，将恒定输入转换为脉动输出的微流体振荡器是关键组件。在这里，我们将恒定流入应用于我们之前的恒定压力驱动振荡器并展示其独特的行为。振荡器的流出有一个脉冲持续时间周期（ $T_{\textrm {D}}$ ) 和脉冲静止期 ( $T_{\textrm {R}}$ ) 在 20– 的低流入速率下 $120~\mu \text{L}$ /分钟。在此流量范围内，脉冲数为 $T_{\textrm {D}}$ 增加，并且 $T_{\textrm {R}}$ 减少了。每一个 $T_{\textrm {D}}$ ，每个脉冲的最大值依次减小。另一方面，在 140– 的高流入速率下 $260~\mu \text{L}$ /min，振荡器产生连续的锯齿波脉动流，而没有 $T_{\textrm {R}}$ . 我们的理论模型表明，入口压力的平均增减率是确定输出脉冲行为的关键参数。我们的研究很有用，并为使用电流体类比开发微流体电路提供了基础。[2019-0193]