Experimental Investigation of Gas Flow in Microchannels

2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (5) ◽  
pp. 753-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Turner ◽  
Lok C. Lam ◽  
Mohammad Faghri ◽  
Otto J. Gregory

This paper presents an experimental investigation of laminar gas flow through microchannels. The independent variables: relative surface roughness, Knudsen number and Mach number were systematically varied to determine their influence on the friction factor. The microchannels were etched into silicon wafers, capped with glass, and have hydraulic diameters between 5 and 96 μm. The pressure was measured at seven locations along the channel length to determine local values of Knudsen number, Mach number and friction factor. All measurements were made in the laminar flow regime with Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.1 to 1000. The results show close agreement for the friction factor in the limiting case of low Ma and low Kn with the incompressible continuum flow theory. The effect of compressibility is observed to have a mild (8 percent) increase in the friction factor as the Mach number approaches 0.35. A 50 percent decrease in the friction factor was seen as the Knudsen number was increased to 0.15. Finally, the influence of surface roughness on the friction factor was shown to be insignificant for both continuum and slip flow regimes.

Author(s):  
Peter M.-Y. Chung ◽  
Masahiro Kawaji ◽  
Akimaro Kawahara

Experiments were performed to study the flow behaviour of de-ionized water and nitrogen gas through round capillary rubes having an inner diameter of 100µm. At steady state, the single-phase pressure drop along the glass microchannel was measured and analysed. To compare with conventional flow theory, an evaluation was made of the friction factor constant for laminar flow and critical Reynolds number for the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The liquid flow data were well predicted by the conventional friction factor equations for larger channels, and the critical Reynolds number was close to the traditional macro-scale value. For single-phase gas flow, the measured friction factors were found to agree with theory if compressibility effects are taken into account. The addition of compressibility yields a non-linear pressure distribution that arises from the density change of the gas in the channel. Unlike liquid flow in microchannels, the gas friction factor constant depends on the Reynolds number, which changes along the channel length. Moreover, compressibility caused the velocity to vary all along the length of the channel and prevented the flow from being fully-developed. The neglect of the slip-flow boundary condition and compressibility may account for the discrepancy between the experimental results of various researchers.


Author(s):  
Arman Sadeghi ◽  
Abolhassan Asgarshamsi ◽  
Mohammad Hassan Saidi

Microscale fluid dynamics has received intensive interest due to the emergence of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Fluid flow in microdevices has some characteristics which one of them is rarefaction effect related with gas flow. In this work, the steady state laminar rarefied gas flow in the entrance region of parallel plate microchannels is investigated by the integral method with slip flow conditions at solid surface. The effects of Knudsen number on friction factor and Nusselt number are presented in graphical form as well as analytical form. Also the effect of Knudsen number on hydrodynamic entry length is presented. The results show that as Knudsen number increases the local friction factor and Nusselt number decrease. Also an increment of Knudsen number leads to a larger amount of hydrodynamic entry length.


1995 ◽  
Vol 284 ◽  
pp. 257-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Harley ◽  
Yufeng Huang ◽  
Haim H. Bau ◽  
Jay N. Zemel

An experimental and theoretical investigation of low Reynolds number, high subsonic Mach number, compressible gas flow in channels is presented. Nitrogen, helium, and argon gases were used. The channels were microfabricated on silicon wafers and were typically 100 μm wide, 104 μm long, and ranged in depth from 0.5 to 20 μm. The Knudsen number ranged from 10-3 to 0.4. The measured friction factor was in good agreement with theoretical predictions assuming isothermal, locally fully developed, first-order, slip flow.


Author(s):  
Chungpyo Hong ◽  
Toru Yamada ◽  
Yutaka Asako ◽  
Mohammad Faghri ◽  
Ichiro Ueno

The effects of rib-patterned surfaces on laminar, transitional to turbulent gas flow in micro-channels were experimentally investigated in the present study. The experiments were performed for two micro-channels having either smooth or rib-patterned surfaces. The micro-channels were etched into silicon wafers and capped with glass substrates. The micro-ribs were patterned on the microchannel surfaces and oriented perpendicular to the flow direction. The pressure was measured at seven locations along the channel length to determine local values of Mach number and friction factor for a wide range of flow regime from laminar to turbulent flow. The friction factors with the hydraulic diameter based on the rib-to-upper-wall height were compared with that for incompressible theory on Moody chart. The values of the product of friction factor and Reynolds number (f·Re) as a function of Mach number were also compared with those of smooth micro-channels and incompressible theory.


Author(s):  
Arman Sadeghi ◽  
Abolhassan Asgarshamsi ◽  
Mohammad Hassan Saidi

Fluid flow and heat transfer at microscale have attracted an important research interest in recent years due to the rapid development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Fluid flow in microdevices has some characteristics which one of them is rarefaction effect related with gas flow. In this research, hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed laminar rarefied gas flow in annular microducts is studied using slip flow boundary conditions. Two different cases of the thermal boundary conditions are considered, namely: uniform temperature at the outer wall and adiabatic inner wall (Case A) and uniform temperature at the inner wall and adiabatic outer wall (Case B). Using the previously obtained velocity distribution, energy conservation equation subjected to relevant boundary conditions is numerically solved using fourth order Runge-Kutta method. The Nusselt number values are presented in graphical form as well as tabular form. It is realized that for the case A increasing aspect ratio results in increasing the Nusselt number, while the opposite is true for the case B. The effect of aspect ratio on Nusselt number is more notable at smaller values of Knudsen number, while its effect becomes slighter at large Knudsen numbers. Also increasing Knudsen number leads to smaller values of Nusselt number for the both cases.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jih-Hsing Tu ◽  
Fangang Tseng ◽  
Ching-Chang Chieng

Abstract Present study investigates the roughness effect on laminar gas flow for microchannels ranging from 40 to 600 μm with various roughness heights (40–82 nm) by systematical experiments. The micro-channels are manufactured by micro-machining technology and KOH anisotropic etching is employed to achieve various roughness patterns. Experimental results shows that higher product levels of Reynolds number (Reh) and friction factor (f) are obtained for microchannels of larger size and smaller relative roughness and friction factor f approaches to laminar flow theory value f0 for very smooth channel but the ratio of (f/f0) decreases as the surface roughness increases.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Turner ◽  
Hongwei Sun ◽  
Mohammad Faghri ◽  
Otto J. Gregory

Abstract This paper presents an experimental investigation on nitrogen and helium flow through microchannels etched in silicon with hydraulic diameters between 10 and 40 microns, and Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.3 to 600. The objectives of this research are (1) to fabricate microchannels with uniform surface roughness and local pressure measurement; (2) to determine the friction factor within the locally fully developed region of the microchannel; and (3) to evaluate the effect of surface roughness on momentum transfer by comparison with smooth microchannels. The friction factor results are presented as the product of friction factor and Reynolds number plotted against Reynolds number. The following conclusions have been reached in the present investigation: (1) microchannels with uniform corrugated surfaces can be fabricated using standard photolithographic processes; and (2) surface features with low aspect ratios of height to width have little effect on the friction factor for laminar flow in microchannels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Snežana S. Milićev ◽  
Nevena D. Stevanović

Abstract The analytical solution for steady viscous pressure-driven compressible isothermal gas flow through micro- and nanochannels with variable cross section for all Knudsen and all Mach number values is presented in this paper. The continuum one-dimensional governing equations are solved using the friction factor that is established in a special way to provide solutions for mass flow rate, pressure, and velocity distribution through the microchannels and nanochannels in the entire rarefaction regime. The friction factor, defined by the general boundary condition and generalized diffusion coefficient proposed by Beskok and Karniadakis (1999, “A Model for Flows in Channels, Pipes, and Ducts at Micro and Nano Scales,” J. Microscale Thermophys. Eng., 3, pp. 43–77), spreads the solution application to all rarefaction regimes from continuum to free molecular flow. The correlation between the product of friction factor and Reynolds number (Poiseuille number) and Knudsen number is established explicitly in the paper. Moreover, the obtained solution includes the inertia effect, which allows the application of the solution to both subsonic and supersonic gas flows, which was not shown earlier. The presented solution confirms the existence of the Knudsen minimum in the diverging, converging, and microchannels and nanochannels with constant cross section. The proposed solution is verified by comparison with experimental, analytical, and numerical results available in literature.


Author(s):  
Chungpyo Hong ◽  
Toru Yamada ◽  
Yutaka Asako ◽  
Mohammad Faghri ◽  
Koichi Suzuki ◽  
...  

This paper presents experimental results on flow characteristics of laminar, transitional to turbulent gas flows through micro-channels. The experiments were performed for three micro-channels. The micro-channels were etched into silicon wafers, capped with glass, and their hydraulic diameter are 69.48, 99.36 and 147.76 μm. The pressure was measured at seven locations along the channel length to determine local values of Mach number and friction factor for a wide range of flow regime from laminar to turbulent flow. Flow characteristics in transitional flow regime to turbulence were obtained. The result shows that f·Re is a function of Mach number and higher than incompressible value due to the compressibility effect. The values of f·Re were compared with f·Re correlations in available literature.


2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Vera ◽  
Xue Feng Zhang ◽  
Howard Hodson ◽  
Neil Harvey

This paper presents the second part of an investigation of the combined effects of unsteadiness and surface roughness on an aft-loaded ultra-high-lift low-pressure turbine (LPT) profile at low Reynolds numbers. The investigation has been performed using low- and high-speed cascade facilities. The low- and high-speed profiles have been designed to have the same normalized isentropic Mach number distribution. The low-speed results have been presented in the first part (Zhang, Vera, Hodson, and Harvey, 2006, ASME J. Turbomach., 128, pp. 517–527). The current paper examines the effect of different surface finishes on an aft-loaded ultra-high-lift LPT profile at Mach and Reynolds numbers representative of LPT engine conditions. The surface roughness values are presented along with the profile losses under steady and unsteady inflow conditions. The results show that the use of a rough surface finish can be used to reduce the profile loss. In addition, the results show that the same quantitative values of losses are obtained at high- and low-speed flow conditions. The latter proves the validity of the low-speed approach for ultra-high-lift profiles for the case of an exit Mach number of the order of 0.64. Hot-wire measurements were carried out to explain the effect of the surface finish on the wake-induced transition mechanism.


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