Minor Losses in Rectangular Xurographic Microchannels

Author(s):  
Daniel Torgerson ◽  
Rahul Kolekar ◽  
Bruce Gale ◽  
Tim Ameel

Xurography is a novel manufacturing process for microfluidic systems, providing rapid prototyping capability at low cost compared to traditional microfabrication technologies. An experimental study of flow characteristics in rectangular xurographic microchannels is reported. Mean microchannel depth, defined by the thickness of the double-sided adhesive kapton tape that forms the channel pattern, is 105–110 μm. The microchannels are capped with glass and mechanically reinforced to withstand the high operating pressures that accompany high Reynolds number Re flow (250–3500). Channel aspect ratios range from 0.45 to 0.074. Width and length measurements are performed using optical microscopy. Microchannel height is measured using a unique nondestructive laser interferometry technique, capable of accurate measurement of the enclosed, compressed microchannels. Data are reported for friction factor, critical Reynolds number, and minor losses in expansions, contractions, and 90° miter bends. Expansion and contraction area ratios are 2, 3, and 5. The experimental Poissuille number in laminar flow for all aspect ratios is in good agreement with theoretical values. Critical Reynolds number ranges from 1800 to 2300, and is found to be dependent on channel defects, such as adhesive droplets and edge imperfections, inherent to xurography. Expansion and contraction losses decrease gradually with increasing Re in the range 250–4000 and increase for decreasing area ratio. Loss coefficients in the 90° miter bends increase with modified aspect ratio and are nearly invariant for 1200 < Re < 2100. Loss coefficients increase nearly linearly with Re for Re < 1200 and decrease significantly for Re greater than the critical Reynolds number.

Author(s):  
Lam Nguyen ◽  
John Elsnab ◽  
Tim Ameel

Xurography is an inexpensive rapid prototyping technology for the development of microfluidic systems. Imprecision in the xurographic tape cutting process can result in undesired changes in channel dimensions near features that require a change in cutting direction, such as 90° miter bends. An experimental study of water flow in rectangular xurographic microchannels incorporating 90° miter bends with different channel widths in each leg is reported. A set of twelve microchannels, with channel depth approximately 105 micrometers and aspect ratio ranging from 0.071 to 0.435, were fabricated from double-sided adhesive Kapton® polyimide tape and two rectangular glass plates. The channels were reinforced with a mechanical clamping system, enabling high Reynolds number, Re, flows (up to Re = 3200) where Re was based upon hydraulic diameter and average velocity. Reported data include friction factor and critical Reynolds number for straight microchannels and loss coefficients for flow through 90° miter bends that contain either a contraction or expansion with cross-sectional area ratios of 0.5, 0.333 and 0.2. The critical Reynolds number, Recr, ranged from 1750 to 2300 and was found to be dependent on channel defects such as sidewall roughness, adhesive droplets, and corner imperfections. Loss coefficients through 90° miter bends with expansion decrease rapidly for Re < Recr. At the transition, the loss coefficient suddenly drops and approaches an asymptotic value for Re > Recr. For 90° miter bends with contractions, loss coefficients gradually decrease with increasing Re for 150 < Re < 1400. In addition, the loss coefficient decreases with decreasing area ratio through the contraction or expansion. The minor loss coefficient data were found to be dependent on Reynolds numbers and area ratio of contraction/expansion at the bend. The results suggest that the effect of the contraction/expansion was the dominant mechanism for minor losses in the 90° miter bend.


Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Kirsch ◽  
Jason K. Ostanek ◽  
Karen A. Thole ◽  
Eleanor Kaufman

Arrays of variably-spaced pin fins are used as a conventional means to conduct and convect heat from internal turbine surfaces. The most common pin shape for this purpose is a circular cylinder. Literature has shown that beyond the first few rows of pin fins, the heat transfer augmentation in the array levels off and slightly decreases. This paper provides experimental results from two studies seeking to understand the effects of gaps in pin spacing (row removals) and alternative pin geometries placed in these gaps. The alternative pin geometries included large cylindrical pins and oblong pins with different aspect ratios. Results from the row removal study at high Reynolds number showed that when rows four through eight were removed, the flow returned to a fully-developed channel flow in the gap between pin rows. When larger alternative geometries replaced the fourth row, heat transfer increased further downstream into the array.


Author(s):  
Brian Dincau ◽  
Arian Aghilinejad ◽  
Jong-Hoon Kim ◽  
Xiaolin Chen

Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) is a common name given to a class of continuous microfluidic separation devices that use a repeating array of pillars to selectively displace particles having a mean diameter greater than the critical diameter (Dc). This Dc is an emergent property influenced by pillar shape, size, and spacing, in addition to the suspending fluid and target particle properties. The majority of previous research in DLD applications has focused on the utilization of laminar flow in low Reynolds number (Re) regimes. While laminar flow exhibits uniform streamlines and predictable separation characteristics, this low-Re regime is dependent on relatively low fluid velocities, and may not hold true at higher processing speeds. Through numerical modeling and experimentation, we investigated high-Re flow characteristics and potential separation enhancements resulting from vortex generation within a DLD array. We used an analytical model and computational software to simulate DLD performance spanning a Re range of 1–100 at flow rates of 2–170 μL/s (0.15–10 mL/min). Each simulated DLD array configuration was composed of 60 μm cylindrical pillars with a 45 μm gap size. The experimental DLD device was fabricated using conventional soft lithography, and injected with 20 μm particles at varying flow rates to observe particle trajectories. The simulated results predict a shift in Dc at Re > 50, while the experimental results indicate a breakdown of typical DLD operation at Re > 70.


Micromachines ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Haiwang Li ◽  
Yujia Li ◽  
Binghuan Huang ◽  
Tiantong Xu

We conducted systematic numerical investigations of the flow characteristics within the entrance region of rectangular microchannels. The effects of the geometrical aspect ratio and roughness on entrance lengths were analyzed. The incompressible laminar Navier–Stokes equations were solved using finite volume method (FVM). In the simulation, hydraulic diameters ( D h ) ranging from 50 to 200 µm were studied, and aspect ratios of 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, and 2 were considered as well. The working fluid was set as water, and the Reynolds number ranged from 0.5 to 100. The results showed a good agreement with the conducted experiment. Correlations are proposed to predict the entrance lengths of microchannels with respect to different aspect ratios. Compared with other correlations, these new correlations are more reliable because a more practical inlet condition was considered in our investigations. Instead of considering the influence of the width and height of the microchannels, in our investigation we proved that the critical role is played by the aspect ratio, representing the combination of the aforementioned parameters. Furthermore, the existence of rough elements obviously shortens the entrance region, and this effect became more pronounced with increasing relative roughness and Reynolds number. A similar effect could be seen by shortening the roughness spacing. An asymmetric distribution of rough elements decreased the entrance length compared with a symmetric distribution, which can be extrapolated to other irregularly distributed forms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Emmanuel des Boscs ◽  
Hendrik C. Kuhlmann

The linear stability of the incompressible flow in an infinitely extended cavity with rectangular cross-section is investigated numerically. The basic flow is driven by a lid which moves tangentially, but at yaw with respect to the edges of the cavity. As a result, the basic flow is a superposition of the classical recirculating two-dimensional lid-driven cavity flow orthogonal to a wall-bounded Couette flow. Critical Reynolds numbers computed by linear stability analysis are found to be significantly smaller than data previously reported in the literature. This finding is confirmed by independent nonlinear three-dimensional simulations. The critical Reynolds number as a function of the yaw angle is discussed for representative aspect ratios. Different instability modes are found. Independent of the yaw angle, the dominant instability mechanism is based on the local lift-up process, i.e. by the amplification of streamwise perturbations by advection of basic flow momentum perpendicular to the sheared basic flow. For small yaw angles, the instability is centrifugal, similar as for the classical lid-driven cavity. As the spanwise component of the lid velocity becomes dominant, the vortex structures of the critical mode become elongated in the direction of the bounded Couette flow with the lift-up process becoming even more important. In this case the instability is made possible by the residual recirculating part of the basic flow providing a feedback mechanism between the streamwise vortices and the streamwise velocity perturbations (streaks) they promote. In the limit when the basic flow approaches bounded Couette flow the critical Reynolds number increases very strongly.


1967 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Pan ◽  
Andreas Acrivos

This paper deals with the steady flow in a rectangular cavity where the motion is driven by the uniform translation of the top wall. Creeping flow solutions for cavities having aspect ratios from ¼ to 5 were obtained numerically by a relaxation technique and were shown to compare favourably with Dean & Montagnon's (1949) similarity solution, as extended by Moffatt (1964), in the region near the bottom corners of a square cavity as well as throughout the major portion of a cavity with aspect ratio equal to 5. In addition, for a Reynolds number range from 20 to 4000, flow patterns were determined experimentally by means of a photographic technique for finite cavities, as well as for cavities of effectively infinite depth. These experimental results suggest that, within finite cavities, the high Reynolds number steady flow should consist essentially of a single inviscid core of uniform vorticity with viscous effects being confined to thin shear layers near the boundaries, while, for cavities of infinite depth, the viscous and inertia forces should remain of comparable magnitude throughout the whole domain even in the limit of very large Reynolds number R.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Yamaguchi ◽  
Xin-Rong Zhang ◽  
Xiao-Dong Niu ◽  
Yuta Ito

An experimental study is carried out to investigate the effects of microglass fiber suspensions in the non-Newtonian fluids in a gap between an inner rotating sphere and an outer whole stationary sphere. In the experiments, the microglass fibers with different aspect ratios are mixed with a macromolecule polymeric fluid to obtain different suspension fluids. For comparison, a Newtonian fluid and the non-Newtonian polymeric fluid are also studied. The stationary torques of the inner sphere that the test fluids acted on are measured under conditions of various concentric spherical gaps and rotational Reynolds numbers. It is found that the polymeric fluid could be governed by the Couette flow at a gap ratio of less than 0.42 and the Reynolds number of less than 100, while the fiber-suspended polymeric fluids could expand the Couette flow region more than the Reynolds number of 100 at the same gap ratios.


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