I-Corps: High-fidelity Simulation Software for Microfluidics

I-Corps：微流控高保真仿真软件

• 批准号: 1559706
• 负责人: Shravan Veerapaneni
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-10-15 至 2018-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1559706&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; fidelity; Simulation; Software; Microfluidics

Microfluidic systems are increasingly being used in diagnostics and therapeutics of several human diseases. They hold tremendous promise for low-cost, point-of-care diagnosis of various types of cancer and HIV, for instance. Key to the success of such systems is the ability to precisely control and manipulate individual blood cells. While their design so far is largely based on heuristics and exhaustive lab testing, new predictive computer simulation tools are emerging. Current commercial software packages provide excellent simulation tools to analyze flow of simple (Newtonian) fluids through any given microfluidic device. However, in the case of flows involving deformable particles such as cells, bubbles or capsules, their scope is extremely limited. Based on recent advances in numerical algorithms, this project will develop novel simulation technology capable of simulating realistic blood cell concentrations, enabling rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices. Thereby, this project has the potential to drive further innovations in low-cost diagnostic tools and patient-specific therapeutic strategies. The main difficulty with particulate flow simulations lies in the fact that the hydrodynamic interactions are long-range, thereby, leading to high computational expense. Furthermore, the time-stepping schemes suffer from loss of accuracy and stability due to nearly touching surfaces that vary in time as the particles flow. The solvers developed by this I-Corps team are already capable of (i) computing the interactions between cells and channels in linear time via the use of fast N-body algorithms, (ii) delivering results with high-fidelity via the use of spectrally-accurate numerical methods and (iii) performing long-time simulations via the use of stiffness-overcoming time-marching schemes. The primary goal of this project is to build a simulation suite that works for any given chip geometry, boundary conditions and cellular concentrations.

微流控系统越来越多地用于几种人类疾病的诊断和治疗。例如，它们为各种癌症和艾滋病的低成本即时诊断带来了巨大的希望。这种系统成功的关键是精确控制和操纵单个血细胞的能力。虽然到目前为止，它们的设计主要是基于启发式和详尽的实验室测试，但新的预测性计算机模拟工具正在出现。目前的商业软件包提供了优秀的模拟工具来分析简单（牛顿）流体通过任何给定的微流体装置的流动。然而，在涉及可变形颗粒（如细胞、气泡或胶囊）的流动情况下，它们的范围非常有限。基于数值算法的最新进展，该项目将开发能够模拟真实血细胞浓度的新型模拟技术，从而实现微流体装置的快速原型设计。因此，该项目有可能推动低成本诊断工具和患者特异性治疗策略的进一步创新。颗粒流模拟的主要困难在于流体动力相互作用是远距离的，从而导致较高的计算费用。此外，由于几乎接触的表面随着粒子流动而随时间变化，时间步进方案遭受精度和稳定性的损失。这个i - corps团队开发的求解器已经能够(i)通过使用快速n体算法在线性时间内计算细胞和通道之间的相互作用，（ii）通过使用光谱精确的数值方法提供高保真度的结果，（iii）通过使用克服刚度的时间推进方案进行长时间模拟。该项目的主要目标是建立一个适用于任何给定芯片几何形状、边界条件和细胞浓度的模拟套件。