The laboratory for virtual design of miniaturized devices was established at Wayne State University in 2008 involving experts from several interdisciplinary fields to practically meet the design and development needs of miniaturized devices. The list of miniaturized devices is growing and some of the present-day devices that we are interested in can be mentioned as: (1) micro-fluidic devices, (2) lab-on-a-chip devices, (3) bio-implants, (4) head-disk drive, (5) inkjet printers, (6) sensory devices, (7) opto-electronic devices, (8) devices with advanced coatings, (9) biomedical devices, (10) micro-heat exchangers, (11) electronic cooling etc. Our laboratory will focus on the virtual design of miniaturized devices by advanced computational model development, modification of the existing simulation models, and necessary experimental verification of critical and fundamental issues encountered by the computational approaches to meet realistic design criteria.
Computational design has long proved to be an efficient, inexpensive and effective way of new product research and development. It is certainly believed that computational design will be of extreme importance in designing also the miniaturized devices which are very expensive to design precisely with all the new aspects and complexities of miniaturization. Interdisciplinary knowledge involving nanoscale surface modifications, nano/micro fluid flows, microscale heat transfer and structural analysis, and multi-physics modeling are vital as areas of primary interest. A multiscale computational approach with transfer of information among different computational methods with experimental verification of critical aspects will be of utmost interest to effectively design the miniaturization aspects and complexities of the devices at this scale.