4,832 research outputs found
Modelling of laminar flow in the inlet section of rectangular microchannels
No full textThis paper is a study of laminar flow in rectangular microchannels. The behaviour of compressible and incompressible fluids in microchannels was simulated using CFD software. Numerical data were compared to experimental measurements to test the validity of CFD models. The velocity profile of flow developing inside the channel is described as a function of the Reynolds number Re, varying from 100 to 2000, and the aspect ratio h/w, ranging from 1 to 0.125. The fundamental importance of the entrance length of microchannels is highlighted. Numerical data were applied to define analytical formulae covering the minimum entrance length for fully developed laminar flow of compressible fluids, viscous stress and incremental pressure drop effect during flow development, and the velocity profiles of flow for compressible and incompressible fluids
A fast method for determining the flow conductance of gas microfluidic devices
No full textThis paper presents a fast method for determining the conductance of gas microfluidic devices with low flow rates and very small pressure drops starting from 30 Pa, corresponding to Re=0.3. This method is based on discharging a gas-pressurized chamber through the microfluidic device under test. The microfluidic device's conductance can be estimated as a function of inlet pressure and the Reynolds number of the flow by recording the upstream pressure during the discharging process and calculating the time derivative of the gas pressure. The pressurized chamber is considered as an isothermal chamber. Experimental results show that a sufficiently accurate isothermal discharging process up to an upstream-to-downstream pressure ratio of 0.8 can be achieved by immersing the chamber in a thermal bath. The method presented here is very fast, requiring only a few seconds for the acquisition procedure and computerized data processing
A mini fluidic oscillating flowmeter
No full textThe paper presents a mini fluidic oscillating flowmeter composed of three microfluidic laminar bistable amplifier
A novel generation of 3D SAR-based passive micromixer: efficient mixing and low pressure drop at low Reynolds number
No full textAbstract
This study introduces a novel generation of 3D splitting and recombination (SAR) passive micromixer with microstructures placed on the top and bottom floors of microchannels called
a ‘chain mixer’. Both experimental verification and numerical analysis of the flow structure of this type of passive micromixer have been performed to evaluate the mixing performance and pressure drop of the microchannel, respectively. We propose here two types of chain
mixer—chain 1 and chain 2—and compare their mixing performance and pressure drop with other micromixers, T-, O- and tear-drop micromixers. Experimental tests carried out in the laminar flow regime with a low Reynolds number range, 0.083 Re 4.166, and image-based techniques are used to evaluate the mixing efficiency. Also, the computational fluid dynamics code, ANSYS FLUENT-13.0 has been used to analyze the flow and pressure drop in the microchannel. Experimental results show that the chain and tear-drop mixer’s efficiency is very high because of the SAR process: specifically, an efficiency of up to 98% can be achieved at the tested Reynolds number. The results also show that chain mixers have a lower required pressure drop in comparison with a tear-drop micromixer
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