Abstract
This paper represents a numerical and experimental investigation of fluids mixing in straight and serpentine micro-channels. These microchannels are fabricated with the help of soft lithography technique. The width of straight and serpentine micro-channels after fabrication is obtained around 335 and 282 µm respectively. Numerical simulations of fluids mixing in micro-channels are performed by solving momentum, continuity and mass diffusion equations. Mixing performance has been evaluated in three average inlet velocities such as 0.001, 0.007 and 0.0167 m/s. The numerical results show that in serpentine micro-channel, an effective mixing has been achieved in almost all the flow conditions whereas in straight channel that is achieved for 0.001 m/s velocity only. Water and water-KMnO4 solution are used as working fluids in this study. The experimental results show that the mixing efficiency of around 95.5, 70.20, and 48.54% has been achieved for straight channel at inlet velocities 0.001, 0.007 and 0.0167 m/s respectively. However, in serpentine micro-channel, the mixing efficiency has been achieved around 97.12, 95.10, and 65.21% at inlet velocities 0.007, 0.0167 and 0.03 m/s respectively. Moreover, the experimental results are compared with the numerical results where it has been observed that the results are quite identical to each other.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the National MEMS Design Centre (NMDC) of National Institute of Technology, Silchar under National Programme on Micro and Smart Systems (NPMASS) of Government of India. They also would like to acknowledge Scientist (Dr.) Abhiram Hens of CMERI Durgapur, India and Prof. P.M. Pawar of SVERI’s College of Engineering, Pandharpur, India for extending their help and support to conduct the experiment.
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Das, S.S., Tilekar, S.D., Wangikar, S.S. et al. Numerical and experimental study of passive fluids mixing in micro-channels of different configurations. Microsyst Technol 23, 5977–5988 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-017-3482-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-017-3482-x