AC Simulation of a Thermal Flow Sensor in a Microfluidic Channel

AbstractA thermal sensor has been developed at IMTEK to perform flow measurement and fluid characterization. It features low power consumption and a simple geometry. By means of numerical simulations it is shown that alternating electric excitation at high frequency (200Hz) makes possible the identification of common gases flowing in a microfluidic channel by measuring the amplitude of the temperature oscillations at the central location of the sensor. Additionally, flow measurement is achieved up to 0.1 m/s