Deformation properties between fluid and periodic circular obstacles in polydimethylsiloxane microchannels: Experimental and numerical investigations under various conditions.

Understanding the mechanical properties of optically transparent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels was essential to the design of polymer-based microdevices. In this experiment, PDMS microchannels were filled with a 100 μM solution of rhodamine 6G dye at very low Reynolds numbers (∼10(-3)). The deformation of PDMS microchannels created by pressure-driven flow was investigated by fluorescence microscopy and quantified the deformation by the linear relationship between dye layer thickness and intensity.

Thermophysical property measurements by electromagnetic levitation melting technique under microgravity.

The purpose of this paper is to review the advances in electromagnetic levitation techniques as tools for determination of the thermophysical properties of molten metals under standard gravity and microgravity conditions. We show that a combination of containerless processing and microgravity offers the exclusive possibility to measure critical thermophysical properties of molten metals, both above and below their melting points, over a wide temperature range, and with high accuracy.