G050031 Fluid-Flow Analysis for a Novel Cylindrical Micromixer

Abstract

With computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experiments, we studied the spiral flow and mixing process inside a novel cylindrical micromixer. Because mixing efficiency is generally poor in microflows ,we expected spiral flow to enhance mixing. Parametric studies evaluated mixing efficiency in terms of flow rate and outer cylinder diameter (i.e., channel width). The patterns of streamlines and the concentration distribution obtained by CFD simulations agreed well with those obtained experimentally by flow observation and concentration measurements. Moreover, we found that the mixing efficiency was strongly influenced by the number of revolutions of the spiral flow. Consequently, we found that as flow rate was increased, the spiral-flow revolution number increased, which resulted in an enhanced mixing efficiency.