Characterization of Surface Roughness Effects on Laminar Flow in Microchannels by Using Fractal Cantor Structures

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongping Chen ◽  
Chengbin Zhang ◽  
Panpan Fu ◽  
Mingheng Shi

The fractal characterization of surface topography by using Cantor set structures is introduced to quantify the microchannel surface. Based on this fractal characterization of surface, a model of laminar flow in rough microchannels is developed and numerically analyzed in this paper. The effects of Reynolds number, relative roughness, and fractal dimension on laminar flow are all discussed. The results indicate that the presence of roughness leads to the form of detachment, and the eddy generation is observed at the shadow of the roughness elements. The pressure drop in the rough microchannels along the flow direction is larger than that in the smooth channel. It is no longer in a linear fashion and the fluctuation in pressure drop along the stream due to the vortex near the wall is found. Differing from the smooth channel, the Poiseuille number for laminar flow in rough microchannels is no longer only dependent on the cross-sectional shape of the channel, but also strongly influenced by the Reynolds number, roughness height, and fractal dimension (spectrum) of the surface.

Author(s):  
Chengbin Zhang ◽  
Yongping Chen ◽  
Panpan Fu ◽  
Mingheng Shi

The fractal characterization of the topography of rough surfaces by using Cantor set structures is introduced in this paper. Based on the fractal Cantor surface, a model of laminar flow in rough microchannels is developed and numerically analyzed to study the characterization of surface roughness effects on laminar flow. The effects of Reynolds number, relative roughness, and fractal dimension on laminar flow are all discussed. The results indicate that the presence of roughness leads to the form of the detachment, and eddy generation is observed at the shadow of the roughness elements. The pressure drop in the rough channel along the flow direction is no longer in a linear fashion and larger than that in the smooth channel. The fluctuation characteristic of pressure drop along the stream, which is due to the vortex formation at the wall, is found. Differing from the smooth channel, the Poiseuille number for laminar flow in rough microchannels is no longer only dependent on the cross-sectional shape of the channel, but also strongly influenced by the Reynolds number, relative roughness and fractal dimension of the surface.


Author(s):  
J. Davies ◽  
D. Maynes ◽  
B. W. Webb

There exists considerable incentive for reducing the required pumping power in microscale heat exchanger applications. One approach recently proposed is the use of super ultrahydrophobic channel walls. The influence such walls exert on the overall thermal transport has not been previously addressed and is the focus of this paper. Specifically, this paper presents numerical results exploring the periodically repeating thermal transport in a parallel plate microchannel with ultrahydrophobic walls maintained at constant temperature. The walls considered here exhibit alternating microribs and cavities positioned perpendicular to the flow direction. Results describing the thermally periodically repeating dynamics far from the inlet of the channel have been obtained over a range of flow Reynolds numbers and relative microrib/cavity widths and depths in the laminar flow regime. Previously it has been shown that significant reductions in the overall frictional pressure drop can be achieved relative to the classical smooth channel laminar flow. The present predictions reveal that the overall thermal transport is also reduced as the relative size of the cavity region is increased. The overall Nusselt number behavior is presented and discussed in conjunction with the frictional pressure drop behavior for the parameter range explored. In summary the following conclusions can be made regarding thermal transport for a constant temperature channel exhibiting ultrahydrophobic surfaces: 1) Increases in the shear free fraction (relative cavity length) yields decreases in the Nusselt number 2) increasing the relative rib/cavity module length yields a decrease in the Nusselt number 3) decreases in the Reynolds number result in smaller values of the Nusselt number and 4) the relative cavity depth exhibits negligible influence on the magnitude of the Nusselt number.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Maynes ◽  
B. W. Webb ◽  
J. Davies

This paper presents numerical results exploring the periodically repeating laminar flow thermal transport in a parallel-plate microchannel with ultrahydrophobic walls maintained at constant temperature. The walls considered here exhibit alternating microribs and cavities positioned perpendicular to the flow direction. Results describing the thermally periodically repeating dynamics far from the inlet of the channel have been obtained over a range of laminar flow Reynolds numbers and relative microrib/cavity module lengths and depths in the laminar flow regime. Previously, it has been shown that significant reductions in the overall frictional pressure drop can be achieved relative to the classical smooth channel laminar flow. The present predictions reveal that the overall thermal transport is also reduced as the relative size of the cavity region is increased. The overall Nusselt number behavior is presented and discussed in conjunction with the frictional pressure drop behavior for the parameter range explored. The following conclusions can be made regarding thermal transport for a constant temperature channel exhibiting ultrahydrophobic surfaces: (1) Increases in the relative cavity length yield decreases in the Nusselt number, (2) increasing the relative rib/cavity module length yields a decrease in the Nusselt number, and (3) decreases in the Reynolds number result in smaller values of the Nusselt number.


Author(s):  
Nihad Dukhan ◽  
Angel Alvarez

Wind-tunnel pressure drop measurements for airflow through two samples of forty-pore-per-inch commercially available open-cell aluminum foam were undertaken. Each sample’s cross-sectional area perpendicular to the flow direction measured 10.16 cm by 24.13 cm. The thickness in the flow direction was 10.16 cm for one sample and 5.08 cm for the other. The flow rate ranged from 0.016 to 0.101 m3/s for the thick sample and from 0.025 to 0.134 m3/s for the other. The data were all in the fully turbulent regime. The pressure drop for both samples increased with increasing flow rate and followed a quadratic behavior. The permeability and the inertia coefficient showed some scatter with average values of 4.6 × 10−8 m2 and 2.9 × 10−8 m2, and 0.086 and 0.066 for the thick and the thin samples, respectively. The friction factor decayed with the Reynolds number and was weakly dependent on the Reynolds number for Reynolds number greater than 35.


Author(s):  
Sam Ghazi-Hesami ◽  
Dylan Wise ◽  
Keith Taylor ◽  
Peter Ireland ◽  
Étienne Robert

Abstract Turbulators are a promising avenue to enhance heat transfer in a wide variety of applications. An experimental and numerical investigation of heat transfer and pressure drop of a broken V (chevron) turbulator is presented at Reynolds numbers ranging from approximately 300,000 to 900,000 in a rectangular channel with an aspect ratio (width/height) of 1.29. The rib height is 3% of the channel hydraulic diameter while the rib spacing to rib height ratio is fixed at 10. Heat transfer measurements are performed on the flat surface between ribs using transient liquid crystal thermography. The experimental results reveal a significant increase of the heat transfer and friction factor of the ribbed surface compared to a smooth channel. Both parameters increase with Reynolds number, with a heat transfer enhancement ratio of up to 2.15 (relative to a smooth channel) and a friction factor ratio of up to 6.32 over the investigated Reynolds number range. Complementary CFD RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) simulations are performed with the κ-ω SST turbulence model in ANSYS Fluent® 17.1, and the numerical estimates are compared against the experimental data. The results reveal that the discrepancy between the experimentally measured area averaged Nusselt number and the numerical estimates increases from approximately 3% to 13% with increasing Reynolds number from 339,000 to 917,000. The numerical estimates indicate turbulators enhance heat transfer by interrupting the boundary layer as well as increasing near surface turbulent kinetic energy and mixing.


1981 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Slutsky ◽  
J. M. Drazen ◽  
C. F. O'Cain ◽  
R. H. Ingram

In a system of rigid tubes under steady flow conditions, the coefficient of friction [CF = 2 delta P/(rho V2/A2)] (where delta P is pressure drop, rho is density, V is flow, and A is cross-sectional area) should be a unique function of Reynolds' number (Re). Recently it has been shown that at any given Re, the value of CF using transpulmonary pressure (PL) was lower when breathing He-O2 compared with air (Lisboa et al., J. Appl. Physiol.: Respirat. Environ. Exercise Physiol. 48: 878–885, 1980). One explanation for this discontinuity is that PL includes the pressure drop due to tissue viscance, which is independent of V, and thus would lead to an overestimate of CF on air compared with He-O2 at any Re. We tested this hypothesis by measuring V related to alveolar pressure, rather than PL, in normal subjects breathing air, He-O2, and SF6-O2. In each subject, for a given Re, CF was greatest breathing SF6-O2 and lowest breathing He-O2, similar to results using PL. Thus tissue viscance is not the sole cause of the discontinuous plot of CF vs. Re, and this phenomenon must be due to other factors, such as changing geometry or nonsteady behavior.


Author(s):  
D. Gloss ◽  
I. Ko¨cke ◽  
H. Herwig

The effect of wall roughness on laminar flows may be important in micro sized channels though it is often neglected in macro sized flow geometries. Based on entropy production considerations we show how its influence can be determined theoretically. It is also discussed how different ways to define the actual wall location influence the pressure drop results in terms of a Poiseuille number.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew F Chen ◽  
Chao-Cheng Shiau ◽  
Je-Chin Han ◽  
Robert Krewinkel

The present study features a two-pass rectangular channel with an aspect ratio (AR) = 4:1 in the first pass and an AR = 2:1 in the second pass after a 180-deg tip turn. In addition to the smooth-wall case, ribs with a profiled cross section are placed at 60 deg to the flow direction on both the leading and trailing surfaces in both passages (P/e = 10, e/Dh ∼ 0.11, parallel and in-line). Regionally averaged heat transfer measurement method was used to obtain the heat transfer coefficients on all internal surfaces. The Reynolds number (Re) ranges from 10,000 to 70,000 in the first passage, and the rotational speed ranges from 0 to 400 rpm. Under pressurized condition (570 kPa), the highest rotation number achieved was Ro = 0.39 in the first passage and 0.16 in the second passage. The results showed that the turn-induced secondary flows are reduced in an accelerating flow. The effects of rotation on heat transfer are generally weakened in the ribbed case than the smooth case. Significant heat transfer reduction (∼30%) on the tip wall was seen in both the smooth and ribbed cases under rotating condition. Overall pressure penalty was reduced for the ribbed case under rotation. Reynolds number effect was found noticeable in the current study. The heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics are sensitive to the geometrical design of the channel and should be taken into account in the design process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Xuan Zhang ◽  
Taocheng Zhao ◽  
Suchen Wu ◽  
Feng Yao

Although roughness is negligible for laminar flow through tubes in classic fluid mechanics, the surface roughness may play an important role in microscale fluid flow due to the large ratio of surface area to volume. To further verify the influence of rough surfaces on microscale liquid flow and heat transfer, a performance test system of heat transfer and liquid flow was designed and built, and a series of experimental examinations are conducted, in which the microchannel material is stainless steel and the working medium is methanol. The results indicate that the surface roughness plays a significant role in the process of laminar flow and heat transfer in microchannels. In microchannels with roughness characteristics, the Poiseuille number of liquid laminar flow relies not only on the cross section shape of the rough microchannels but also on the Reynolds number of liquid flow. The Poiseuille number of liquid laminar flow in rough microchannels increases with increasing Reynolds number. In addition, the Nusselt number of liquid laminar heat transfer is related not only to the cross section shape of a rough microchannel but also to the Reynolds number of liquid flow, and the Nusselt number increases with increasing Reynolds number.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Walter ◽  
C.-J. Chen

This paper investigates flow characteristics for a benchmark experiment that is important for thermal hydraulic phenomena in nuclear power plant design. The flow visualization experiment is carried out for flow in a rectangular offset channel covering both the laminar and turbulent flow regimes. The Reynolds number, based on the inlet velocity and the height of the inlet channel, ranges from 25 to 4600. The offset channel is an idealized thermal hydraulic geometry. Duct flow expands in a rectangular chamber and exits to a duct that is offset from the entrance duct. The offset geometry creates zones of recirculation for thermal-hydraulic mixing. Flow patterns are visualized by a laser light sheet in the symmetry plane of the primary flow direction and in three cross-sectional planes. A charge-coupled device (CCD) images the flow field, simplifying the experimental process and subsequent image analyses. The flow pattern and size of the recirculation zones change dramatically with Reynolds number until the flow is fully turbulent. While the velocity field itself is predominantly two dimensional, it is shown that the walls of the chamber produce a fully three-dimensional flow that could not be predicted properly by a two-dimensional calculation. Quantitative measurements of particle pathlines from several images are superimposed to give a composite view of the velocity field at one of the Reynolds numbers examined.


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