CFD Modelling of HIsarna Off-gas System

HIsarna is a new and breakthrough smelting reduction technology for producing liquid hot metal for steelmaking directly from iron ores. Compared to the conventional blast furnace route, HIsarna achieves a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by eliminating coking and the need for iron ore agglomeration processes such as sintering and pelletizing and...

Fluidic Control: Tangible control mechanisms for multi-material fluidic driven interfaces with material jetting additive manufacturing

Fluidic interfaces use liquids to sense, compute, and output a dynamic appearance or behavior in response to mechanical deformation inputs.<br/>Integrating logic and user-actuated control mechanisms in the interfaces can, in the future, enable to achieve more complex dynamic behaviors for designing interactive artifacts that are entirely analog...

Design of compliant valves that can be integrated into a fluidic network

Building a distributed fluidic actuation system is a challenge due to every actuator needs its own control valve. Due to this, an n by an array of actuators needs n 2 number of valves. A logic network of valves provides a solution by reducing the number of valves needed to operate such distributed fluidic actuation system. These compliant...

Flow Ripple Reduction in Reciprocating Pumps by Multi-Phase Rectification

Reciprocating piezoelectric micropumps enable miniaturization in microfluidics for lab-on-a-chip applications such as organs-on-chips (OoC). However, achieving a steady flow when using these micropumps is a significant challenge because of flow ripples in the displaced liquid, especially at low frequencies or low flow rates (&lt;50 µL/min)....

Stability Limits of Capillary Aligned Micro-Parts Subject to High Dynamics

Capillary self-alignment shows the potential to keep small components aligned using soft liquid contact when disturbed by external forces. Whilst this concept has been promising, mostly static situations have been investigated, making it unclear how a receptor-droplet-chip (RDC) configuration behaves dynamically and where its stability limits...

Fluidic Force Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy Unveil New Insights into the Interactions of Preosteoblasts with 3D-Printed Submicron Patterns

Physical patterns represent potential surface cues for promoting osteogenic differentiation of stem cells and improving osseointegration of orthopedic implants. Understanding the early cell–surface interactions and their effects on late cellular functions is essential for a rational design of such topographies, yet still elusive. In this work...

Developing the soft fluidic actuation unit for future heart assist

Heart failure, caused by a weakened heart muscle that is not able to pump enough blood through the entire body, causes many deaths worldwide. The current heart assist devices designed to treat this acute condition cause a myriad of life threatening complications mainly caused by direct contact with the circulatory blood. A new generation of...

Smart magnetic fluids: Controllable distributedfluidic actuation

This thesis is centred around the problem that heart failures become more common when other dis-eases could be treated better. Although surgery could fix the immediate effects of heart failures, therecovery after the surgery is hindered by the heart not being able to pump enough blood. There aresolutions available but they are not implemented...