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Novel micromixers driven by flow instabilities: Application to post‐reactors
Author(s) -
Deshmukh S. R.,
Vlachos D. G.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.10591
Subject(s) - micromixer , microscale chemistry , reynolds number , mixing (physics) , pressure drop , mechanics , wake , flow (mathematics) , computational fluid dynamics , micromixing , materials science , fluid dynamics , microfluidics , computer science , mechanical engineering , simulation , thermodynamics , nanotechnology , engineering , physics , mathematics , mathematics education , quantum mechanics , turbulence
Flow‐driven instabilites in microdevices, consisting of small features (posts), are studied using 2‐D computational fluid dynamics simulations as a means of enhanching mixing at the microscale. It is found that oscillatory flow developed above a critical Reynolds number in the wake of a post is weakly affected by volumetric and surface (catalytic) reactions. The observed reactivity, on the other hand, is strongly affected by flow‐driven instabilities. Based on these results, a novel post micromixer that capitalizes on this oscillatory flow while exhibiting a low pressure drop is proposed. Finally, different feature configurations are investigated to gain insights into the mixing performance and to develop design guidelines. © 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2005