A Finite Element Method to Compute the Damping Rate and Frequency of Oscillating Fluids Inside Microfluidic Nozzles

The computation of damping rates of an oscillating fluid with a free surface in which viscosity is small and surface tension high is numerically challenging. A typical application requiring such computation is drop-on-demand (DoD) microfluidic devices that eject liquid metal droplets, where accurate knowledge of the damping rates for the least-damped oscillation modes following droplet ejection is paramount for assessing jetting stability at higher jetting frequencies, as ejection from a nonquiescent meniscus can result in deviations from nominal droplet properties. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations often struggle to accurately predict meniscus damping unless very fine discretizations are adopted, so calculations are slow and computationally expensive. The faster alternative we adopt here is to compute the damping rate directly from the eigenvalues of the linearized problem. The presence of a surface tension term in Stokes or sloshing problems requires approximation of the meniscus displacements as well, which introduces additional complexity in their numerical solution. In this paper, we consider the combined effects of viscosity and surface tension, approximate the meniscus displacements, and construct a finite element method to compute the fluid's oscillation modes. We prove that if the finite element spaces satisfy a typical inf-sup condition, and the space of the meniscus displacements is a subset of the set of normal traces of the space of velocities, then the method is free of spurious modes with zero or positive damping rates. To construct numerical examples, we implement the method with Taylor-Hood elements for the velocity and pressure fields, and with continuous piecewise quadratic elements for the displacement of the meniscus. We verify the numerical convergence of the method by reproducing the solution to an analytical benchmark problem and two more complex examples with axisymmetric geometry. Remarkably, the spatial shape and temporal evolution (angular frequency and damping rate) of the set of least-damped oscillation modes are obtained in a matter of minutes, compared to days for a CFD simulation. The method's ability to quickly generate accurate estimates of fluid oscillation damping rates makes it suitable for integration into design loops for prototyping microfluidic nozzles.