Influence of Non-newtonian Properties of Liquid in Microchannels on Pressure Drop and Bubble Length

Pressure drop and bubble morphology are essential characteristics of microfluidic system design and process control. In this paper, a new type of microfluidic chip was designed and produced, including a flow-focusing device and a fluid transport device to simulate bubble generation and fluid transport in practical applications. Nitrogen and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose solutions of different concentrations were used as the gas and liquid phases. Single-phase flow and two-phase flow experiments were designed according to the commonly used flow conditions in the microchannel. By changing the flow rates of liquid and gas, the pressure drop in the fluid transport device of the two fluid states, the length of the bubble generated in the flow-focusing device, and the length of the bubble after passing through the transport device were measured, respectively. The influence of non-Newtonian characteristics of the liquid on pressure drop and the length of the generated bubbles were analyzed. The results show that the non-Newtonian characteristics of fluid have a significant effect on the pressure drop of single-phase flow and two-phase flow. Within a specific flow velocity range, the bubble length can be predicted according to the dimensionless number of the liquid. The pressure drop increases the bubble length to varying degrees.

Taylor Bubbles of Viscous Slug Flow in Inclined Pipes

Unique structures are formed when gases and liquids flow simultaneously in pipelines. The geometric characteristics of these structures are fundamental parameters in intermittent flow regimes. The length of liquid slugs and Taylor bubbles are inputs to mechanistic and empirical models for pressure drop estimation, slug catcher sizing and determination of the periods of no or low liquid in pipelines. Although slug flow has been studied for decades, there still exists a lack of comprehensive understanding of flow structures dynamics due to the complex interactions between the gas and liquid phases in two-phase flow. This study investigates the influence of pipe inclination on the length and hydrodynamics of large gas structures in intermittent flows, particularly, ‘Taylor bubbles’ in slug flow regime. An experimental study was conducted in a 67 mm ID pipe to estimate the bubble lengths of an air-silicone oil mixture from void fraction measurement using a twin-plane Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) tool. The results show that the pipe inclination, gas and liquid flow rates have a substantial effect on the length of large bubbles in slug flow. Taylor bubbles get longer when the void fraction increases, or the pipe inclination deviates towards the horizontal pipe orientation. The influence of pipe inclination on bubble length is quite significant; this variation in bubble length with pipe inclination is attributed to the expansion or compression of large gas structures when there is an alteration on the forces acting on the bubble nose. The weight of the liquid column above the bubble nose which has been often neglected in earlier models was identified to have a notable effect on the volume occupied by the large bubbles and consequently, its length. A semi-mechanistic model is proposed based on the analysis of forces acting on the Taylor bubble nose in a quiescence liquid phase. A comparative analysis of the model and previous models shows that the proposed model outperforms existing mechanistic and empirical models across all pipe inclinations. This study gives an insight into the effect of pipe inclination on the length of large bubbles during slugging in pipes, as these bubbles can be up to 10 times longer in horizontal pipes compared to vertical pipes at the same flow conditions. The proposed model has the potential of estimating the length of large bubbles across all pipe inclinations in upward slug flow with acceptable accuracy, particularly for pipelines installed in undulating terrains.

Simulation of Passing Wakes Inducing Unsteady Boundary Layer Transition Around Low-Pressure Turbine Blade

The present study focuses on the very high-lift T106C cascade with passing wakes and aims to validate the γ - Re θ ¯ model of Menter-Langtry used to predict laminar-turbulent transition based on unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. The comparison to experimental data provided by Von Karman Institute, shows that the transition model is able to capture the influence of passing wakes on transition phenomenon. Like the experiments, the simulations show a reduction of the time-averaged separation bubble length and of the overall losses in the presence of passing wakes. For this numerical study, four other wakes have been generated in order to study the influence of wake parameters on the transition onset, on the laminar separation bubble formation and on the turbine cascade performances. For a given averaged turbulence intensity and total pressure deficit, thinner wakes seem to have a more positive effect on boundary layer, reducing the separation and the overall losses.

Excitation of Shear Layer Due to Surface Roughness Near the Leading Edge: An Experiment

In this paper, a comprehensive study has been performed to address the excitation of a separated boundary layer near the leading edge due to surface roughness. Experiments are performed on a model airfoil with the semicircular leading edge at a Reynolds number (Rec) of 1.6×105, where the freestream turbulence (fst) is 1.2%. The flow features are investigated over the three rough surfaces with the roughness characteristic in the wall unit of 17, 10.5, and 8.4, which are estimated from the velocity profile at a location far downstream of reattachment. The wall roughness results in an early transition and reattachment, leading to a reduction of the laminar shear layer length apart from the bubble length. It is worthwhile to note that although the large-amplitude pretransitional perturbations are apparent from the beginning for the rough surface, the shear layer reflects the amplification of selected frequencies, where the fundamental frequency when normalized is almost the same as that of the smooth wall. The universal intermittency curve can be used to describe the transition of the shear layer, which exhibits some resemblance to the excitation of the boundary layer under fst, signifying the viscous effect.

Numerical Computation of Low Reynolds Number Viscous Flow Past Bluff Bodies

This article presents a two-dimensional steady viscous flow simulation past circular and square cylinders at low Reynolds numbers (based on the diameter) by the finite volume method with a non-orthogonal body-fitted grid. Diffusive fluxes are discretized using central differencing scheme, and for convective fluxes upwind and central differencing schemes are blended using a ‘deferred correction’ approach. A simplified pressure correction equation is derived, and proper under-relaxation factors are used so that computational cost is reduced without adversely affecting the convergence rate. The governing equations are expressed in Cartesian velocity components and solution is carried out using the SIMPLE algorithm for collocated arrangement of variables. The mesh yielding grid-independent solution is then utilized to study, for the very first time, the effect of the Reynolds number on the separation bubble length, separation angle, and drag coefficients for both circular and square cylinders. Finally, functional relationships between the computed quantities and Reynolds number (Re) are proposed up to Re = 40. It is found that circular cylinder separation commences between Re= 6.5-6.6, and the bubble length, separation angle, total drag vary as Re, Re−0.5, Re−0.5 respectively. Extrapolated results obtained from the empirical relations for the circular cylinder show an excellent agreement with established data from the literature. For a square cylinder, the bubble length and total drag are found to vary as Re and Re−0.666, and are greater than these for a circular cylinder at a given Reynolds number. The numerical results substantiate that a square shaped cylinder is more bluff than a circular one.

Flow and spreading behaviors of coaxial jets wake

Flow and spreading behaviors of swirling jets using a dual-blockage disk are studied experimentally. The control and blockage disks are placed concentrically in tandem. The smoke flow patterns are obtained using the flow visualization technique. The axial velocity and turbulence intensity are detected using a 1-D hot-wire sensor. The jet spreading characteristics are illustrated by using an Edge Detection Method. Two pairs of lung-formed vortices and triangle-formed vortices are induced in downstream wake at Rec ≤ 200. Two vortices are found near the field at 200 < Rec < 700, while no toroidal structure was found above the reflected jet at Rec ≥ 700. The recirculation bubble length was increased with increasing Rec until Rec < 700. The axial velocity and turbulence intensity at 200 < Rec < 700 are significantly greater than those in other modes. At Rec ≥ 700, the shear-layer vortices are found far away from the control disk.

Investigation of Hydrodynamic and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Gas-liquid Taylor flow in Square Microchannel

Heat transfer and flow characteristics under air-water Taylor flow in a square microchannel with T-junction were investigated in this work. Different hydraulic diameters of models were discussed numerically by VOF method. Flow patterns such as bubbly flow, slug flow, annular flow and churn flow were identified by both numerical simulation and experimental methods. Simulation results including bubble formation process, bubble length, bubble velocity, void fraction and heat transfer fit well with literature data. The pressure differential of two sides in gas phase played an important role in bubble development. The gas and liquid superficial velocities were found to have a significant impact on bubble behavior. And the higher liquid viscosity would promote higher bubble velocity, also enhance heat transfer, but weaken the void fraction. The results showed a tiny but not ignorable effect of geometric dimensioning on bubble and liquid slug lengths. An appropriate correlation was proposed to estimate bubble length, and the deviation was −10 ~ + 15 %. By using moving frame of reference technique, the internal circulations inside the moving slugs were displayed more clearly.

Requirements for DNA bubble structure for efficient cleavage by helix–two-turn–helix DNA glycosylases

Oxidative DNA lesions, constantly generated by both endogenous and environmentally induced reactive oxygen species, are removed via the base excision repair pathway. In bacteria, Fpg and Nei DNA glycosylases, belonging to the helix–two-turn–helix (H2TH) structural superfamily, remove oxidised purines and pyrimidines, respectively. Interestingly, the human H2TH family glycosylases, NEIL1, NEIL2 and NEIL3, have been reported to prefer oxidative lesions in DNA bubbles or single-stranded DNA. It had been hypothesised that NEIL2 might be involved in the repair of lesions in transcription bubbles; however, bubble-like structures may appear in other cellular contexts such as displacement loops (D-loops) associated with transcription, recombination or telomere maintenance. The activities of bacterial Fpg and Nei on bubble substrates were not addressed. Also, it is not known whether H2TH enzymes process bubbles containing the third DNA or RNA strand, and how the bubble length and position of the lesion within a bubble affect the excision. We have investigated the removal of 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) and 5,6-dihydrouracil (DHU) by Escherichia coli Fpg and Nei and human NEIL1 and NEIL2 from single-strand oligonucleotides, perfect duplexes, bubbles with different numbers of unpaired bases (6–30), bubbles containing the lesion in different positions and D-loops with the third strand made of DNA or RNA. Fpg, NEIL1 and NEIL2 efficiently excised lesions located within bubbles, with NEIL1 and NEIL2 being specific for DHU, and Fpg removing both 8-oxoG and DHU. Nei, in contrast, was significantly active only on DHU located in double-stranded DNA. Fpg and NEIL1 also tolerated the presence of the third strand of either DNA or RNA in D-loops if the lesion was in the single-stranded part, and Fpg, Nei and NEIL1 excised lesions from the double-stranded DNA part of D-loops. The presence of an additional unpaired 5′-tail of DNA or RNA did not affect the activity. No significant position preference for lesions in a 12-mer bubble was found. Overall, the activities of Fpg, NEIL1 and NEIL2 on these non-canonical substrates are consistent with the possibility that these enzymes may participate in the repair in structures arising during transcription or homologous recombination.

Effect of wall temperature on separation bubble size in laminar hypersonic shock/boundary layer interaction flows

At hypersonic speeds, the external wall temperatures of an aerospace vehicle vary significantly. As a result, there is a considerable heat transfer variation between the boundary layer and the wall of the hypersonic vehicle. In this article, numerical computations are performed to investigate the effect of wall temperature on the separation bubble length in laminar hypersonic shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction flows over double-cone configuration at the Mach number of 12.2. The flow field is described in detail in terms of different shocks, expansion fans, shear layer and separation bubble. The variation of the Prandtl number has a negligible effect on the flow field and wall data. A specific heat ratio of less than 1.4 results in the better prediction of wall pressure and heat flux in the shock/boundary-layer interaction region. It is observed that as the wall temperature is increased, the separation bubble size and hence the separation shock length increases. The high firmness of the laminar boundary-layer at a high Mach number shows that the wall temperature in the shock/boundary-layer interaction region has little effect. The peak wall pressure and heat flux decrease with an increase in wall temperature. An estimation is developed between separation bubble length and wall temperature based on the computed results.