Characterization of high fluid strain micro contractions to study the stress on biological fluids

Microfluidics has the potential to enhance the understanding of the of biological fluids under strain, due to the laminar nature of the fluid and the possibility to mimic the real conditions. We present advances on characterization of a microfluidic platform to study high strain rate flows in the transport of biological fluids. These advances are improvements on the reproduction of a constant extensional strain rate using micro contractions and development of 3D numerical models. The micro geometries have been fabricated in polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) using standard soft-lithography techniques with a photolithographically patterned mold. A comparison of some microcontractions with different funnel characteristics is presented. The Micro Particle Image Velocimetry technique has been applied to validate the numerical simulations. We demonstrate the use of microfluidics in the reproduction of a large range of controllable extensional strains that can be used in the study of the effect of flow on biological fluids.