  The electroosmotic flow of non-Newtonian fluids in deformable microchannels
is fundamentally important in the understanding of the hydrodynamics in
physiological flows. The performance of these microchannels is governed by the
load bearing capacity indicating the maximum amount of load that the device can
withstand. While significant research efforts are aimed towards the coupling of
electrokinetics with substrate deformability, the corresponding enhancement in
the performances still remains elusive. Towards this, employing an intricate
coupling between substrate compliance, hydrodynamic, and electrokinetic
modulations, we have analyzed the possible sources of alterations in the flow
physics in a deformable microchannel under the rheological premises of
viscoelastic fluids which have a close resemblance with biological fluids
typically used in several bio and micro-fluidic applications. The present study
reveals that by operating under favorable regimes of parameters like the
concentration and molecular weight of the polymer, the quality of the Newtonian
solvent, and the concentration of electrolyte, one can achieve substantial
augmentation in the load carrying capacity of a deformable microchannel for
viscoelastic fluids as compared to its Newtonian counterpart. We believe that
the present theoretical framework can be extremely important in the designing
of electro-kinetically modulated bio-mimetic microfluidic devices.
