International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543

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International Journal of Multiphase Flow

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmulflow

Effect of entry geometry on droplet dynamics in contraction microchannel

Van Thanh Hoang a, *, Van Duong Le a, Jang Min Park b, Bich-Tram Truong-Le c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, 54 Nguyen Luong Bang Street, Danang City 550000, Vietnam
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Yeungnam University, Daehak-ro 280, Gyeongsan 38541, Republic of Korea
c
Department of Science-Technology and Environment, The University of Danang, Danang City 550000, Vietnam

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In droplet-based microfluidic systems, the movement and control of liquid droplets are primarily governed by
Contraction microchannel microchannel geometry. The aim of this study is to examine droplet dynamics in contraction microchannels by
Droplet-based microfluidics using three-dimensional simulation and theoretical modeling. This work specifically describes three regimes of
Droplet dynamics
the droplet dynamics, including the trap, squeeze, and breakup regimes, and investigates the effects of capillary
Numerical simulation
Capillary number
number (Ca), entry angle (α), and contraction channel ratio (C). Additionally, a theoretical model is proposed to
describe the transition between squeeze and trap regimes, which depends on the entry angle. The critical value of
capillary number (Ca1c) for this transition is observed to be Ca1c = a(CM − b /α), where a and b are fitted pa­
rameters. Meanwhile, the entry angle is found to have no influence on the transition from squeeze to breakup
regime. The droplet deformations, retraction, and/or breakup position are quantitatively investigated for a wide
range of capillary number and entry angle. The aforementioned findings would provide valuable recommen­
dations for designing contraction micro channels.

1. Introduction
The application of microfluidics in Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) and micro­
TAS, which are predominantly used in the biomedical, pharmaceutical,
and environmental domains, has increased over the past few decades
(Castillo-León and Svendsen, 2015). The systems of microfluidics have a
number of benefits, including low-volume sample and reagent con­
sumption, quick analysis, the manipulation capacity of tiny particles,
cells, and droplets, inexpensive manufacturing costs, and more. Over the
past few years, droplet-based microfluidic technologies have been
quickly developed for biological and chemical analysis (Yan et al.,
2013). Up until recently, a lot of attention was given to the specifics of
droplet dynamics in microfluidic systems. To ensure the control and
manipulation of chemical compounds and reagents more accurately in a
digital setting, these devices involve injecting two or more fluids that
cannot be immiscible to create droplets (Baroud et al., 2010; Seemann
et al., 2012).
Contraction microchannels are frequently used in microfluidic de­
vices, which are based on droplets, for various applications. For
instance, droplet production and regime characteristics in a narrow
microchannel were studied for emulsification purposes (Anna et al.,
2003; Fu et al., 2012; Yan et al., 2012; Fu and Ma, 2015; Dang et al.,
2015). In order to detect and analyze genes optically, Randall et al.
(2006) stretched big DNA molecules inside droplets using a micro­
channel under hyperbolic contraction. Using the contraction micro­
channel, rheological properties of polymeric materials can also be
measured (Pipe and McKinley, 2009).
The dynamics of the droplets in the contraction microchannel have
been presented in quite great detail, both numerically and experimen­
tally. The majority of earlier research in numerical studies was done
using a model with two dimensions. For example, Khayat et al. (1997)
investigated the deformation of droplets caused by the contraction entry
geometry and rheology by using a numerical computational method
called the boundary element method (BEM). Then, they used a hyper­
bolic convergent-divergent microchannel to numerically and physically
explore the effects of shear and elongation flows on droplet deformation
(Khayat et al., 2000). Using the finite element method, Chung et al.
(2008,2009) examined how viscoelasticity affected drop dynamics in a
5:1:5 planar microchannel with contraction-expansion geometry. An
additional study looked more closely at the effects of the capillary
number (Ca), Weber number (We), Reynolds number (Re), and viscosity
ratio on the droplet dynamics in a two-dimensional contraction micro­
channel (Christafakis and Tsangaris, 2008). Harvie et al. (2005, 2006,
2007) investigated droplet dynamics in a contraction microchannel with

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hvthanh@dut.udn.vn (V.T. Hoang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2023.104543
Received 4 December 2022; Received in revised form 13 May 2023; Accepted 2 June 2023
Available online 10 June 2023
0301-9322/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
V.T. Hoang et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the contraction microchannel used in simulation: (a) a full geometry and symmetric computational domain illustrated by the blue color
for medium phase and the red color for droplet phase, and (b) top and side views of the geometry.
axisymmetric geometry, where the Re, Ca, and viscosity ratios were
taken into account for exploring droplet deformation. There are not
many papers in the literature that discuss droplet dynamics in contrac­
tion microchannels in three dimensions. Zhang et al. (2014, 2015, 2018)
conducted representative three-dimensional investigations to examine
droplet deformation under various three-dimensional contractions and
control the deformation of droplets, cells, and particles in narrow con­
finements. Droplet dynamics of transitions from trap to squeeze and
from squeeze to breakup in contraction microchannel was investigated
by Hoang et al. (2018). Imani et al. explored the effects of capillarity –
wettability to droplet deformation through a constricted capillary
channel (Imani et al., 2022). The numerical and experimental investi­
gation about the elongation of droplet as an equation of the ratio of the
initial diameter of droplet to the cross-sectional area of an abrupt
contraction was presented by Patlazhan et al. (2022). Up to our
knowledge, there are not many outcomes from experimental studies
available in the literature.
The majority of the numerical investigations in those earlier publi­
cations are restricted to microchannel that contract in two dimensions or
that are axisymmetric; however, these simulations might differ signifi­
cantly from experiments, especially for non-circular microchannel. Two-
dimensional models, for instance, were unable to adequately forecast
droplet generation or deformation in microchannel due to the curvature
of the droplet and non-circular hydrodynamics of the microchannel
(Galusinski and Vigneaux, 2008; Harvie et al., 2008; Ngo et al., 2015). In
order to conduct a thorough investigation, the dynamics of droplets in
such a geometry should be characterized using a three-dimensional
model since the practical microfluidic systems used have rectangular
cross-sections. In fact, the experimental study of droplet dynamics in a
microchannel will cost a lot to get large enough data for a wide range of
conditions such as capillary numbers, viscosity ratios, and geometry
parameters. In addition, with the development of computational tools,
numerical simulation has been utilized to gradually replace the experi­
mental study for its advantages (Sivasamy et al., 2011). However, the
numerical analysis is also time consuming to get such a large quantity of
data, especially for very large computation problems. To overcome these
difficulties, theoretical models are typically used to predict droplet dy­
namics properties in microchannel. To the best of our knowledge, there
are no comprehensive instructions in the literature for designing a
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International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543
contraction microchannel with changing entry angles for finely manip­
ulating droplets. In this regard, the goal of the current study is to explore
droplet dynamics in a contraction microchannel with various entry an­
gles in three dimensions by using numerical analysis and theoretical
modeling. The results of this study could be an advantageous guideline
for droplet-based microfluidic application designers, especially when
the contraction microchannel is adopted for particular purposes as
presented earlier. From the theoretical and numerical studies presented
here, one might also have a thorough knowledge of droplet dynamics in
microfluidics design.
Section 2 presents the geometry description of the contraction
microchannel and computational models. The results of theoretical and
numerical analysis are displayed in Section 3, and details of the influ­
ence of entry angle, capillary number, and viscosity ratio on droplet
dynamics along the downstream are provided. Section 4 concludes with
a summary and recommendations.
2. Problem description
2.1. Geometry description
Fig. 1 depicts the geometrical shape of the contraction microchannel.
A red sphere in the illustration indicates the initial location of a droplet
with a radius of R, which is centered at the origin of the coordinate
system. The microchannel in this work is 5R deep, minimizing the wall
effect from the microchannel top (y = 2.5R) and bottom (y = − 2.5R)
surfaces on the behavior of the droplet (Kennedy et al., 1994; Guido and
Villone, 1998; Ioannou et al., 2016). The length and width of contraction
microchannel are 30R and 2W, respectively, whereas the bigger
microchannel has a length of Li and a width of 4R. The entry angle of the
contraction region is denoted as α.
In order to fully capture the droplet dynamics without outlet
boundary effect, the length of contraction microchannel of 30R was
chosen (Ngo et al., 2015). The contraction level is defined as C = R/W, a
non-dimensional number. In this study, the contraction C ranges from
1.11 to 2.5, therefore the microchannel width (2W) is always less than
the original droplet diameter (2R). In this work, a symmetric model
representing a fourth of the whole three-dimensional model is employed
to reduce the computing cost, as indicated by the blue color in Fig. 1. (a).
V.T. Hoang et al.
Fig. 2. The snapshot description on the influence of entry angle and Ca1 on trap to squeeze characteristics. Viscosity ratio λ = 0.15, and contraction ratio C = 1.25.
Because dynamics of droplet-based microfluidic system is charac­
terized by the flow with very low Reynolds number, the inertia effect is
disregarded in the simulation. Both the dispersed and medium phases
are considered to be incompressible Newtonian liquids. A volume of
fluid model is employed to represent the interface between the droplet
and the medium, and the continuum surface force model is utilized to
describe the surface tension as a body force (Brackbill et al., 1992). At
the inlet, a constant velocity is used, and at the outflow, zero pressure is
applied as the boundary condition. The microchannel wall is subjected
to the no-slip condition. In order to prevent the wall from getting wet,
the contact angle between the droplet and the wall is 180 degrees. In
droplet-based microfluidic systems that use silicone oil as the medium
phase and aqueous liquid as the droplet phase, the viscosity ratio (λ) of
the droplet viscosity (μd ) to the medium viscosity (μm ) is around 0.15.
2.2. Computational model
The simulation is performed using the commercial software of
ANSYS Fluent. In this work, the PISO scheme, the PRESTO!, the second
order upwind scheme, and the Geo-Reconstruct scheme are used for the
pressure-velocity coupling, the pressure interpolation, the momentum
conservation equation, and the interface interpolation, respectively (Li
et al., 2012; Hoang and Park, 2019). The hexahedral elements used to
uniformly discretize the computational domain have a size of R/20,
which is fine enough for the current investigation (Li et al., 2012). A
mesh convergence test result will be presented in the next section. With
a Courant number of 0.25, a variable time stepping is employed for the
time discretization. The computational model was validated with
experimental results of the droplet formation problem as presented in
the previous studies (Li et al., 2012).
The capillary number (Ca) is defined as Ca = μm V/σ, where Vis the
characteristic velocity, μm is viscosity of medium phrase and σ is the
coefficient of surface tension between the two phases. In the explanation
that follows, two distinct capillary numbers will be utilized based on the
droplet’s location in the microchannel. The capillary number is desig­
nated as Ca1 in the larger microchannel and is determined by the
entrance velocity (Vi ) as the characteristic velocity, whereas the capil­
lary number in the contraction microchannel, Ca2 , is determined by the
average velocity in the contraction microchannel Vc . Therefore, Ca2 =
2C Ca1 .
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International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543
3. Results and discussion
A mesh convergence study is conducted first to determine the
element size which allows an accurate description of the trap and
squeeze regimes. Then, the droplet dynamics in the contraction micro­
channel is described qualitatively through the snapshots of the numer­
ical results. To predict the transition characteristics from trap to squeeze
regime, a theoretical model is proposed in the next subsection. Finally,
the droplet dynamics is analyzed quantitatively for a wide range of the
entry angles, capillary numbers, viscosity ratios, and contraction ratios
of the microchannel.
3.1. Mesh convergence study
The effects of element size on the droplet dynamics in the contraction
channel were tested before handling numerical analysis. The dimen­
sionless element size, δ, is defined as the ratio between the element size
and the diameter of a droplet. An entry angle of 45 degrees was used in
this test. The viscosity ratio, capillary number, and contraction ratio
used are 0.15, 0.0018, and 1.25, respectively. It has been found that the
numerical result largely depends on the element size, and as the element
size is decreased, the droplet is likely to pass through the contraction. As
a result, the droplet passes through the channel when δ ≤ 0.025. In this
study, we handled the mesh convergence study by using the phenome­
non that droplet passes through or do not pass through the contraction
area, and we discovered that when the mesh system was 0.025, droplets
moved from the trap to the squeeze regime. In addition, the mesh system
of 0.025 is the same as the one used in Li et al.’s study (2012). In this
regard, numerical simulations are carried out with the mesh system of
δ = 0.025, and the details of the results will be discussed in the
following subsections.
3.2. The effect of entry angle and capillary number
In Fig. 2, the effect of the entry angle on the droplet trap and squeeze
can be observed clearly from the snapshots of the numerical results. The
droplet does not conformably bend to the contraction microchannel in
the first scenario depicted in Figs. 2 (a), (b), and (c), and as a result, it is
unable to pass through the contraction microchannel until the entry
angle is decreased to 30 degrees. This instance is referred to as a trap. In
the second scenario where the entry angle is decreased to 26 degrees,
shown in Fig. 2 (d), the droplet is squeezed and transported down the
contraction microchannel. This scenario is referred to as a squeeze in
V.T. Hoang et al. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543

Fig. 3. The snapshot of the influence of entry angle on squeeze to breakup characteristics. Viscosity ratio λ = 0.15, capillary number Ca2 = 0.735, and contraction
ratio C = 1.25.

Fig. 4. The influences of entry angle on the droplet trap and squeeze regimes: filled-square symbols: trap; unfilled-circle symbols: squeeze. Viscosity ratio λ = 0.15,
contraction ratio C = 1.25.

this work. When the capillary number is decreased, the entry angle
required for the squeeze is found to decrease, as shown in Figs. 2 (e) and
(f). A change in hydrostatic pressure can control the trapped droplet to
overcome/or not the Laplace pressure. The lower the hydrostatic pres­
sure, the easier it is for droplets to be trapped, and vice versa (Simon
et al., 2012; Hoang et al., 2018).
The droplet dynamics in the downstream is shown in Fig. 3. When
the capillary number is large enough, the droplet can finally split into
smaller droplets as a result of complex interfacial processes, which is
referred to in this work as a breakup. In general, the breakup behavior is
found to be similar for different entry angles. Ca1 is used to investigate
droplet dynamics at the transition from trap to squeeze, whereas
characteristics of the transition from squeeze to breakup are defined by
Ca2 .
Fig. 4 depicts the overall map of trap and squeeze regimes observed
in Fig. 2 for λ = 0.15 and contraction ratio C = 1.25. For Ca1 > 0.0018,
the droplet always passes through the contraction in this condition. For
Ca1 < 0.0018, the critical capillary number distinguishing the trap and
squeeze regimes increases with the entry angle. In other words, the
droplet can be trapped by increasing the entry angle. Meanwhile, the
breakup always takes place independently from the entry angle as
observed from Fig. 3, as far as Ca2 is larger than a critical value, which is
0.73, in this case.

Fig. 5. Illustration of trap mechanism for entry angle α = 26 degrees and contraction ratio C = 1.25.

4
V.T. Hoang et al.
Fig. 6. The snapshot of influences of the contraction ratio and entry angle on the trap-to-squeeze phenomenon. Ca1 = 0.0025, viscosity ratio = 0.15.
3.3. Proposed model
Hoang et al. (2018) previously investigated the mechanism of trap­
ping phenomena for a contraction entry angle of 90 degrees, and the trap
criterion was described by a simple model which is a function of capil­
lary numbers and contraction ratios. This study extends the previous
trap criterion model such that the entry angle can be taken into account.
The Laplace pressure for a given interface can be calculated using the
Young-Laplace equation, which is defined as Δp = 2Rσ. When the droplet
enters the contraction microchannel, it is no longer a sphere, and there is
a difference in radius between front and back interfaces of the droplet. In
particular, Fig. 5 illustrates a droplet trapped at the contraction channel.
According to Simon et al. (2012), to simplify the analysis, two charac­
teristic radii of Rb and Rf , corresponding to the back and front interfaces
of the droplet, respectively, are used to describe the droplet shape. The
Laplace pressures at the back interface and front interface of the droplet
are Δpb and Δpf , respectively. As a result, Δp = Δpf − Δpb is the pressure
difference between the front and back of the droplet, and it can be
( )
written as Δp = σ R1f − R1b . Δph stands for the hydrostatic pressure
Fig. 7. The trap, squeeze regimes depending on the contraction ratio C and entry angle α with λ = 0.15, Ca1 = 0.0025.
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International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543
difference between the contraction region and the inlet. If Δph ≤ Δp,
then the droplet will be trapped (Simon et al., 2012; Hoang et al., 2018).
The hydrostatic pressure Δph can be expressed as follows
μm Vi Cf Li
Δph = (1)
2Dh 2
where the friction factor and hydraulic diameter are denoted as Cf =
57.7and Dh , respectively (Munson et al., 1998). As far as the radius Rb is
concerned, the numerical results, for example, Fig. 2 (a) ~ (d) suggest
that Rb increases with the entry angle α, while the contraction ratio does
not affect Rb (result not shown). Therefore, we assume that Rb ∼ Rα. The
front radius Rf can be assumed to be independent of α, but it can depend
on the contraction ratio C like Rf ∼ RC− M (Hoang et al., 2018). Hence,
the pressure difference between the front and back of the droplet is
expressed as follows:
( )
σ A1
Δp = A0 C M − (2)
R α
Therefore, at the critical limit where Δph = Δp, the critical Ca of the
V.T. Hoang et al. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543

Fig 8. The diagram to define the deformation and position of droplet.

Fig. 9. The influence of the viscosity ratios and entry angle on the deformation of a droplet in the contraction microchannel. The capillary number Ca2 = 0.1 and the
Contraction ratio C = 1.25.

transition between trap and squeeze can be derived as follows: transition mentioned above is observed within a limited range of the
( ) contraction ratio from 1.36 to 1.56. When the contraction ratio is out of
2Dh 2 A1
Ca1c = A0 C M − (3) that range, the droplet will be either trapped or squeezed, independent
Cf L i R α of the entry angle. Ca1 is used to characterize droplet dynamics at the
A fitted curve of Eq. (3) to the data points shown in Fig. 4 is also transition from trap to squeeze, but it is too small to capture the breakup
plotted in the same figure. The fitted parameters are: M of 0.054, coef­ regime in this case.
ficient A0 of 0.016 and coefficient A1 of 0.001. The trap criterion model
could well fit the numerical results. 3.5. Droplet deformation

3.4. The effect of the contraction ratio and entry angle
Fig. 6 is a snapshot illustration of the trap and squeeze phenomenon
depending on the contraction ratio and entry angle. The viscosity ratio
and capillary number are set to 0.15 and 0.0025, respectively. It is
shown that the droplet can be trapped by increasing the contraction
(Fig. 6(a) and (b), Fig. 6(e) and (f)). This is consistent with the previous
studies on the trap mechanisms of Simon et al. (2012) and Hoang et al.
(2018). Also, we can see that the droplet is trapped as the entry angle is
increased (Figs. 6(b) ~ (e)). In other words, even though the contraction
ratio C is large, the droplet can still be squeezed and flow downstream as
the entry angle is reduced.
Fig. 7 depicts an overall map of trap and squeeze regimes depending
on contraction ratios and entry angles. Actually, the trap-squeeze
The deformation and position of a droplet in a contraction micro­
channel is defined according to the dimensions shown in Fig. 8. The
deformation of a droplet is defined as Ld /D, where the droplet length Ld
is measured from the back interface to the front one and D = 2R. The
droplet position is defined as Zd = (Zb + Zf )/2, where Zb and Zf are
the back position and the front position of the droplet, respectively. The
capillary number Ca2 characterizes droplet dynamics in the contraction
microchannel.
Fig. 9 shows the droplet deformation for a variety of values of the
viscosity ratio and entry angle when the capillary number Ca2 is 0.1 and
the contraction ratio C is 1.25. In general, the viscosity ratio does not
significantly affect the position at which droplet deformation reaches
the steady state. However, an overshoot of the deformation is not found
when the viscosity ratio is high, i.e., there is no retraction behavior when

6
V.T. Hoang et al.
Fig. 10. The influence of capillary number and entry angle on the deformation of a droplet for viscosity ratio of 2, contraction ratio of 1.25.
Fig. 11. Types of droplet breakup in the contraction microchannel: C = 1.25, α = 15◦ , λ = 0.15.
the viscosity ratio is larger than around 10. In this regard, retraction
behavior occurs for the specific microchannel geometry and the fixed
capillary number, but it still strongly depends on the initial droplet
shape, capillary number, and viscosity ratio (Cubaud, 2009). Hence, the
influence of these parameters should be rigorously investigated in the
contraction microchannel for further study. Furthermore, droplet
deformation at steady state largely increases with the viscosity ratio in
the contraction microchannel.
As far as entry angle is concerned, Fig. 9 also describes droplet
deformation around the contraction region for a viscosity ratio of 0.15. It
is obvious that droplet deformation at steady state does not depend on
the entry angle. In general, a larger entry angle results in greater
deformation in the contraction region. This is because, as the contrac­
tion angle is large, the extensional flow becomes more dominant than
the shear one at the contraction region. In addition, it is noted that at
large entry angles, droplet deformation tends to reach a steady state
sooner before going to the contraction microchannel. The extensional
flow, which is localized at the contraction region, becomes narrower as
the entry angle increases, and, therefore, the retraction of the deformed
droplet can take place earlier for a larger entry angle.
Fig. 10 describes droplet deformation as a function of droplet posi­
tion depending on the capillary number and entry angle. The entry angle
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International Journal of Multiphase Flow 167 (2023) 104543
alpha is 45 degrees, the viscosity ratio is 2. In general, the droplet ex­
periences stretching and retraction at low capillary numbers as shown in
the cases of Ca2 = 0.1 and 0.3, whereas more continuous elongation and
breakup occur later after the retraction at high capillary numbers like
Ca2 = 0.4.
Depending on Ca2 and C, a droplet will exhibit one of three types of
interfacial events in the breakdown regime of the contraction micro­
channel. The droplet in the first type, as seen in Fig. 11 (a), forms a tail
which later breaks up into a small daughter droplet. The second type is
depicted in Fig. 11 (b), where the breakage results from the tearing of
the interface around the middle of the droplet. These types are found in
smaller capillary numbers. For large capillary numbers, as shown in
Fig. 11 (c), the droplet strongly deforms into a thin tail and then larger
daughter droplets are separated from the mother droplet.
4. Conclusion
In this work, the effects of entry angle, capillary number, and vis­
cosity ratio on droplet dynamics in a planar contraction microchannel
were examined. First, three regimes of trap, squeeze, and breakup have
been investigated with a particular emphasis on the effect of the
contraction geometry and capillary number. A simple theoretical model
V.T. Hoang et al.
has been suggested to characterize the transition between trap and
squeeze regimes, which is found to be in good agreement with the
simulation results.
In addition, the droplet deformation and retraction at the contraction
region and breakup along the downstream have been studied. The entry
angle affects the droplet deformation around the contraction region, and
it does not affect the droplet dynamics in the downstream.
The contraction geometry microchannel could be used for accurate
control and manipulation of droplets inside microfluidic devices,
depending on the applications of the droplet-based microfluidic systems.
In this regard, the current findings, including the map of the three re­
gimes as a function of Ca, C, entry angle and theoretical model, may
serve as valuable guides for building contraction microchannel in
practice.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Van Thanh Hoang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation,
Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing. Van Duong Le: Data curation, Validation. Jang Min Park:
Formal analysis, Supervision. Bich-Tram Truong-Le: Formal analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
Acknowledgments
This research is funded by Funds for Science and Technology
Development of the University of Danang, under project number B2020-
DN02-84.
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