scholarly journals An Investigation of Flow Patterns and Mixing Characteristics in a Cross-Shaped Micromixer within the Laminar Regime

Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 462
Author(s):  
Shuai Yuan ◽  
Bingyan Jiang ◽  
Tao Peng ◽  
Qiang Li ◽  
Mingyong Zhou

A fast mixing is critical for subsequent practical development of microfluidic devices, which are often used for assays in the detection of reagents and samples. The present work sets up computational fluid dynamics simulations to explore the flow characteristic and mixing mechanism of fluids in cross-shaped mixers within the laminar regime. First, the effects of increasing an operating parameter on local mixing quality along the microchannels are investigated. It is found that sufficient diffusion cannot occur even though the concentration gradient is large at a high Reynolds number. Meanwhile, a method for calculating local mixing efficiency is also characterized. The mixing efficiency varies exponentially with the flow distance. Second, in order to optimize the cross-shaped mixer, the effects of design parameters, namely aspect ratio, mixing angle and blockage, on mixing quality are captured and the visualization of velocity and concentration distribution are demonstrated. The results show that the aspect ratio and the blockage play an important role in accelerating the mixing process. They can improve the mixing efficiency by increasing the mass transfer area and enhancing the chaotic advection, respectively. In contrast, the inflow angle that affects dispersion length is not an effective parameter. Besides, the surface roughness, which makes the disturbance of fluid flow by roughness more obvious, is considered. Three types of rough elements bring benefits for enhancing mixing quality due to the convection induced by the lateral velocity.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farideh Haghighi ◽  
Zahra Talebpour ◽  
Amir Sanati-Nezhad

AbstractFlow distributor located at the beginning of the micromachined pillar array column (PAC) has significant roles in uniform distribution of flow through separation channels and thus separation efficiency. Chip manufacturing artifacts, contaminated solvents, and complex matrix of samples may contribute to clogging of the microfabricated channels, affect the distribution of the sample, and alter the performance of both natural and engineered systems. An even fluid distribution must be achieved cross-sectionally through careful design of flow distributors and minimizing the sensitivity to clogging in order to reach satisfactory separation efficiency. Given the difficulty to investigate experimentally a high number of clogging conditions and geometries, this work exploits a computational fluid dynamic model to investigate the effect of various design parameters on the performance of flow distributors in equally spreading the flow along the separation channels in the presence of different degrees of clogging. An array of radially elongated hexagonal pillars was selected for the separation channel (column). The design parameters include channel width, distributor width, aspect ratio of the pillars, and number of contact zone rows. The performance of known flow distributors, including bifurcating (BF), radially interconnected (RI), and recently introduced mixed-mode (MMI) in addition to two new distributors designed in this work (MMII and MMIII) were investigated in terms of mean elution time, volumetric variance, asymmetry factors, and pressure drop between the inlet and the monitor line for each design. The results show that except for pressure drop, the channel width and aspect ratio of the pillars has no significant influence on flow distribution pattern in non-clogged distributors. However, the behavior of flow distributors in response to clogging was found to be dependent on width of the channels. Also increasing the distributor width and number of contact zone rows after the first splitting stage showed no improvement in the ability to alleviate the clogging. MMI distributor with the channel width of 3 µm, aspect ratio of the pillars equal to 20, number of exits of 8, and number of contact zones of 3 exhibited the highest stability and minimum sensitivity to different degrees of clogging.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.M. Shahin ◽  
Mohammad Asaduzzaman Chowdhury ◽  
Md. Arefin Kowser ◽  
Uttam Kumar Debnath ◽  
M.H. Monir

Purpose The purposes of the present study are to ensure higher sustainability of journal bearings under different applied loads and to observe bearing performances such as elastic strain, total deformation and stress formation. Design/methodology/approach A journal bearing test rig was used to determine the effect of the applied load on the bearing friction, film thickness, lubricant film pressure, etc. A steady-state analysis was performed to obtain the bearing performance. Findings An efficient aspect ratio (L/D) range was obtained to increase the durability or the stability of the bearing while the bearing is in the working condition by using SAE 5W-30 oil. The results from the study were compared with previous studies in which different types of oil and water, such as Newtonian fluid (NF), magnetorheological fluid (MRF) and nonmagnetorheological fluid (NMRF), were used as the lubricant. To ensure a preferable aspect ratio range (0.25-0.50), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted by ANSYS; the results show a lower elastic strain and deformation within the preferable aspect ratio (0.25-0.50) rather than a higher aspect ratio using the SAE 5W-30 oil. Originality/value It is expected that the findings of this study will contribute to the improvement of the bearing design and the bearing lubricating system.


Author(s):  
Pawan K. Singh ◽  
Hua Feng Samuel Tan ◽  
Chiang Juay Teo ◽  
Poh Seng Lee

The Wavy channels are supposed to enhance performance of microchannel heat sink through chaotic advection. The change in boundary layer thickness (thinning) and the macroscopic mixing due to the formation of Dean’s vortices have been found to be main reasons for enhanced heat transfer in wavy microchannel. Present study carries out a detailed numerical investigation for flow and heat transfer in wavy channel. A 3D geometry for a single loop of wavy channel is modeled in GAMBIT and simulated in CFD software FLUENT. The basic dimensions were 0.15 mm width, 0.3 mm height and 1.5 mm length. The formation of Dean vortices are shown. In parametric study, the effect of Re number on the flow and heat transfer performance is shown. Heat transfer was found to be increased with Re. The effect of Aspect ratio is shown. The channel with the aspect ratio of 0.5 is found to be best among the channels studied including wavy and straight microchannels. A novel concept of secondary branches is introduced to wavy microchannel to take advantage of high pressure zone at crust. The branched wavy microchannel encouraged the secondary flow thus enhanced the macroscopic mixing. Due to disrupt of boundary layer development and its re-initialization, an improved thermal performance was achieved.


Author(s):  
James F. White ◽  
Oddvar O. Bendiksen

The aeroelastic stability of titanium and composite blades of low aspect ratio is examined over a range of design parameters, using a Rayleigh-Ritz formulation. The blade modes include a plate-type mode to account for chordwise bending. Chordwise flexibility is found to have a significant effect on the unstalled supersonic flutter of low aspect ratio blades, and also on the stability of tip sections of shrouded fan blades. For blades with a thickness of less than approximately four percent of chord, the chordwise, second bending, and first torsion branches are all unstable at moderately high supersonic Mach numbers. For composite blades, the important structural coupling between bending and torsion cannot be modeled properly unless chordwise bending is accounted for. Typically, aft fiber sweep produces beneficial bending-torsion coupling that is stabilizing, whereas forward fiber sweep has the opposite effect. By using crossed-ply laminate configurations, critical aeroelastic modes can be stabilized.


Author(s):  
S. A. Kazemi ◽  
M. Passandideh-Fard ◽  
J. Esmaeelpanah

In this paper, a numerical study of two new designs of passive micro-mixers based on chaotic advection is presented. The advection phenomenon in a T-shaped micro-mixer is enhanced using a segmented gas-liquid flow; and a peripheral/axial mixing mechanism. The simulations are performed for two non-reactive miscible gases: oxygen and methanol. The numerical model employed for this study is based on the solution of the physical governing equations namely the continuity, momentum, species transport and an equation to track the free surface development. The equations are discretized using a control volume numerical technique. The distribution of the species concentration within the domain is calculated based on which a mixing intensity factor is introduced. This factor is then used as a criterion for the mixing length. In the first micro-mixer design with a drop injection mechanism for a typical condition, the mixing length is reduced by nearly 15%. Compared to that of a simple T-shaped micro-mixer with the same flow rates, the two gases interface area is increased in axisymmetric micro-mixer leading to an increase of the mixing efficiency and a reduction of the mixing length. Also, the effects of the baffles height and span on the mixing efficiency and length in axisymmetric micro-mixer are studied. Having baffles in the channel can substantially decrease the mixing length.


Author(s):  
Robert T. Bailey ◽  
Stephen Ryan ◽  
Frank Jones ◽  
Stephanie Wilson ◽  
James Hiestand

Many industrial chemical processes involve the mixing of two or more liquids. By reducing chemical reactors to microscale dimensions, engineers seek to take advantage of decreased diffusion lengths, leading to increased effectiveness (e.g., higher purity of product) over larger process components. In this study, computational models developed using the commercial multiphysics code CFD-ACE+ are used to predict flow within microreactor channels. Two aqueous streams enter a channel—one containing a contaminant and the other devoid of the contaminant. Changes in two geometric attributes are investigated with respect to their effect on mixing of the streams: 1) packing feature layout within the channel and 2) channel aspect ratio. Reynolds numbers (Re) for the simulations range between 0.1 and 100. Results indicate that both packing feature position within the channel and channel aspect ratio can have a substantial impact on mixing. Between Re = 0.1 and Re = 1, mixing efficiency generally decreases with increasing Re; however, as the Re is increased from 1 to 100, fluid flow patterns in the channel are altered, and wake regions and streamline changes created by the packing features lead to improved mixing. Examples showing enhanced chemical conversion during heterogeneous catalysis as a result of better mixing are also presented.


Author(s):  
Cesar A. Cortes-Quiroz ◽  
Alireza Azarbadegan ◽  
Emadaldin Moeendarbary ◽  
Mehrdad Zangeneh

Numerical simulations and an optimization method are used to study the design of a planar T-micromixer with curved-shaped baffles in the mixing channel. The mixing efficiency and the pressure loss in the mixing channel have been evaluated for Reynolds number (Re) in the mixing channel in the range 1 to 250. A Mixing index (Mi) has been defined to quantify the mixing efficiency. Three geometric dimensions: radius of baffle, baffles pitch and height of the channel, are taken as design parameters, whereas the mixing index at the outlet section and the pressure loss in the mixing channel are the performance parameters used to optimize the micromixer geometry. To investigate the effect of design and operation parameters on the device performance, a systematic design and optimization methodology is applied, which combines Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with an optimization strategy that integrates Design of Experiments (DOE), Surrogate modeling (SM) and Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) techniques. The Pareto front of designs with the optimum trade-offs of mixing index and pressure loss is obtained for different values of Re. The micromixer can enhance mixing using the mechanisms of diffusion (lower Re) and convection (higher Re) to achieve values over 90%, in particular for Re in the order of 100 that has been found the cost-effective level for volume flow. This study applies a systematic procedure for evaluation and optimization of a planar T-mixer with baffles in the channel that promote transversal 3-D flow as well as recirculation secondary flows that enhance mixing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
J. F. Bueno ◽  
A. R. S. Silva ◽  
T. A. Hirt ◽  
G. F. C. Bogo ◽  
F. S. F. Zinani ◽  
...  

The present work investigates the Construtal Design of fins inserted in cavities submitted to mixed convection by non-Newtonian fluids. The objective is to obtain the optimum aspect ratio for the fin considering different flow conditions and variations in the rheological parameters of the fluid. The phenomena of flow and heat transfer are modeled by mass balance, momentum and energy equations, and by the generalized Newtonian liquid constitutive equation. The viscosity is modeled as that of a pseudoplastic fluid, using the Carreau function. The optimization problem consists in maximizing heat transfer from the fin using the average Nusselt number. The investigated project variable is the aspect ratio between the edges of the rectangular plane fin profile. The restrictions are the volume of the cavity and the fin. The results are obtained numerically using a finite volume code and a two-dimensional geometry, through exhaustive searching. The results show that the fin geometry influences the maximum Nusselt number mainly for the cases with high Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers, such as was shown in previous studies. The results show that the fin geometry influences the maximum Nusselt number mainly for the cases with high Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers, as was shown in previous studies. It was also found that the Nusselt number increases as the increase in flow intensity, represented by the parameter p, and that the result of the maximum Nusselt number does not change monotonically with the non-Newtonian dimensionless viscosity and with the flow index, showing that the pseudoplasticity of the fluid implies optimal configurations very different from those predicted for Newtonian fluids.


1986 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Van Oossanen ◽  
P. N. Joubert

In this paper the authors present a numerical and experimental analysis of the winged keel originally developed for the International twelve-metre class yacht Australia II that won the America's Cup in 1983. After briefly explaining why this keel was evolved in 1981, some basic considerations are presented relating keel performance to various design parameters. The results of numerical flow analyses and wind-tunnel measurements on a model of a winged keel are then presented and compared. The differences between the performance with and without winglets fitted to the keel are discussed. The fitting of winglets appreciably enhances the performance of a low-aspect-ratio lifting surface such as the keel of a twelve-metre yacht.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (25) ◽  
pp. 3461-3465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Müllner ◽  
Kylie Yang ◽  
Amandeep Kaur ◽  
Elizabeth J. New

Molecular polymer brushes allow for independent tailoring of nanoparticle design parameters. Brush particles with altered shape and aspect ratio revealed that particle shape effects may be decoupled from surface chemistry to achieve higher tumour spheroid interaction and penetration.


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