Showing papers on "Pressure drop published in 2009"

Inertia dominated drop collisions. I. On the universal flow in the lamella

Abstract: This study is devoted to the analysis of inertia dominated axisymmetric drop collisions with a dry substrate or with another liquid drop. All the previous theoretical and semiempirical models of drop collisions are based on the assumption that the flow in the lamella and its thickness are determined by the impact conditions, mainly by the Reynolds and Weber numbers. In this study the existing experimental data are compared to existing and new numerical simulations for the shape of the lamella generated at the early times of drop impact for various impact conditions. The results show that if the Reynolds and Weber numbers are high enough, the evolution of the lamella thickness almost does not depend on the viscosity and surface tension. Therefore these results completely change our understanding of the flow generated by drop collisions. Moreover, we demonstrate that the theoretical models based on the approximation of the shape of the deforming drop by a disk and the models based on the energy balance appr...

The deformation of flexible PDMS microchannels under a pressure driven flow.

Abstract: Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microchannels are commonly used microfluidic structures that have a wide variety of biological testing applications, including the simulation of blood vessels to study the mechanics of vascular disease. In these studies in particular, the deformation of the channel due to the pressure inside is a critical parameter. We describe a method for using fluorescence microscopy to quantify the deformation of such channels under pressure driven flow. Additionally, the relationship between wall thickness and channel deformation is investigated. PDMS microchannels of varying top wall thickness were created using a soft lithography process. A solution of fluorescent dye is pumped through the channels at constant volume flow rates and illuminated. Pressure and fluorescence intensity are measured at five positions along the length of the channel. Fluorescence measurements are then used to determine deformation, using the linear relationship of dye layer thickness and intensity. A linear relationship between pressure and microchannel deformation is measured. Pressure drops and deformations closely correspond to values predicted by the model in most cases. Additionally, measured pressure drops are found to be up to 35% less than the pressure drop in a rigid-walled channel, and channel wall thickness is found to have an increasing effect as the channel wall thickness decreases.

Revision of capillary cone-jet physics: electrospray and flow focusing.

Abstract: Capillary cone jets are natural microfluidic structures arising in steady capillary tip streaming, whose paradigms are electrospray and flow focusing phenomena. In this work, we make a profound revision of the basic underlying physics of generic cone jets from thousands of experimental measurements, most of them reported in the literature. First, the boundaries of the stability region of steady jetting are calculated. We describe these limitations by instability mechanisms associated with the local flow structure in the tip and the issuing jet and with the global behavior of the meniscus. Second, to undertake a general physical treatment of cone jets in steady regime, we analyze the energy balance taking place in the tips of both flow focusing and electrospray. This analysis yields a fundamental result: if the electrospray data are expressed in terms of an effective pressure drop, both phenomena satisfy the same scaling law for the droplet size, which exhibits nearly complete similarity in the parameter window where quasimonodisperse sprays are produced. That effective pressure drop is a function of the liquid properties exclusively, i.e., it does not depend on the operational parameters (flow rate and applied voltage). Moreover, the stability limits of the operational regimes are analyzed in detail, finding fundamental coincidences between flow focusing and electrospray as well. These results provide most useful general description and predictive scaling laws for nearly monodisperse microspraying or nanospraying based on steady cone jets, of immediate applicability in analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, biochemistry, pharmaceutical and food technologies, painting, and many other technological fields.

A Coupled DEM and CFD Simulation of Flow Field and Pressure Drop in Fixed Bed Reactor with Randomly Packed Catalyst Particles

Abstract: Packed bed unit operations are required for many commercial chemical processes. The ability to a priori predict void fraction and pressure drop in a packed bed would significantly improve reactor d...

Hydrodynamic resistance of single confined moving drops in rectangular microchannels

Abstract: We integrate a sensitive microfluidic comparator into a T-junction device and report measurements of the excess pressure drop due to a single moving droplet confined in a rectangular microchannel. We specifically focus on drops that are not coated with surfactants and study the effects of drop size, droplet viscosity and capillary number on their hydrodynamic resistance. In the capillary number range of ≈ 10−3–10−2, we find two distinct regimes for hydrodynamic resistance behavior based on drop size. In regime I associated with small drops (drop length/channel width 4), depending on the viscosity ratio of the two phases, the hydrodynamic resistance could increase, decrease or remain unchanged with drop size. We present a simple model that qualitatively captures these experimental trends. This model reveals that the pressure drop in regime I is dominated by the dissipation due to the end caps, and in regime II by both the end caps and the central body of the droplet. Such fundamental understanding will enable the design of large-scale energy-efficient fluidic circuits by minimizing the overall pressure drop in a network and may also provide insights into controlling droplet traffic to build functional passively-driven two-phase microfluidic technologies.

Topology optimization of microfluidic mixers

Abstract: This paper demonstrates the application of the topology optimization method as a general and systematic approach for microfluidic mixer design. The mixing process is modeled as convection dominated transport in low Reynolds number incompressible flow. The mixer performance is maximized by altering the layout of flow/non-flow regions subject to a constraint on the pressure drop between inlet and outlet. For a square cross-sectioned pipe the mixing is increased by 70% compared with a straight pipe at the cost of a 2.5 fold increase in pressure drop. Another example where only the bottom profile of the channel is a design domain results in intricate herring bone patterns that confirm findings from the literature. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.