Rapid and precise manipulation of droplets in microfluidic devices is in greater demand than ever. Droplet fusion and separation based on dielectrophoresis (DEP) in particular, commonly employed in a variety of biomedical operations, are studied extensively. Here, a full‐scale computational study is performed to understand the mechanism for the fusion of relatively small microdroplets. Based on the phase field theory, the droplet boundary is precisely tracked and a mathematical model including laminar flow, electrostatic field, and phase field is developed, while the DEP force acting on droplets is obtained by the Maxwell stress tensor (MST) method.

中文翻译：

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微通道中电势和会聚-扩散几何结构之间的相互作用引起的熔滴融合

对微流体装置中的液滴的快速和精确处理的需求比以往任何时候都要大。特别是在各种生物医学操作中通常采用的基于介电电泳（DEP）的液滴融合和分离已得到广泛研究。在这里，进行了全面的计算研究，以了解相对较小的微滴融合的机制。基于相场理论，可以精确地跟踪液滴的边界，并建立包括层流，静电场和相场的数学模型，而通过麦克斯韦应力张量（MST）方法获得作用在液滴上的DEP力。