Accelerated Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations of Microfluidic Devices by Exploiting Higher Levels of Abstraction

Abstract

The design of microfluidic devices is a cumbersome and tedious process that can be significantly improved by simulation. Methods based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are considered state-of-the-art, but require extensive compute time—oftentimes limiting the size of microfluidic devices that can be simulated. Simulation methods that abstract the underlying physics on a higher level generally provide results instantly, but the fidelity of these methods is usually worse. In this work, a simulation method that accelerates CFD simulations by exploiting simulation methods on higher levels of abstraction is proposed. Case studies confirm that the proposed method accelerates CFD simulations by multiple factors (often several orders of magnitude) while maintaining the fidelity of CFD simulations.