Session MD - Micro and Nano VI.
ORAL session, Tuesday morning, November 25
Diamond Court, Ballroom D, SMH
The dynamics of an electrically conducting, incompressible viscous fluid driven by a prescribed electric field in a thin channel is investigated. The fluid motion is induced electroosmosis and the conductivity of the fluid varies by an order of magnitude in the orthogonal to the imposed field. An effective set of equations is derived by taking advantage of the small depth of the channel compared to the larger cross-stream length scale and streamwise length scale. These equations take into account the gradients in concentration, disturbance electrostatic potential, and fluid pressure. Linear stability results of these equations compare favorably with the linear stability of the full three-dimensional solution, in addtion to numerical simulation of the problem. The implications to enhanced mixing are discussed.