Lattice Boltzmann simulation of 2D AC electrothermal pump

The electrothermal flow in the microfluidics system is a fast developing technology because of the technology advancement in Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). The fluid flow is driven by the electrothermal force generated by the AC electrical field and non-uniform temperature distribution inside the system. In this paper, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), a particle-based approach, will be used to simulate the 2D electrothermal pump. As an alternative numerical method for fluid dynamics, LBM has lots of advantages compared with traditional CFD methods especially for the computation in micro-scale with complex boundary conditions¹. It will be shown that LBM is an effective approach to simulate 2D electrothermal pump.