STUDY OF THE MIXING REGIMES OF A FLUID AND A NANOFLUID IN A T-SHAPED MICROMIXER

In the present paper, the regimes of fl ow and mixing of water and a nanofl uid with aluminum oxide nanoparticles in a T-shaped microchannel have been studied numerically. The Reynolds number was varied from 10 to 400, and the volume concentration of nanoparticles was varied from 0 to 10%. Nanofl uids with mean sizes of particles from 50 to 150 nm were considered. The viscosity coeffi cient of the nanofl uid was taken from experimental data. In all cases, it exceeded the viscosity coeffi cient of water and depended on not only the concentration of nanoparticles, but also on their sizes, and the viscosity of the nanofl uid with smaller particles was higher than the viscosity of the nanofl uid with large particles. It has been established that there exist regimes of steady irrotational fl ow, steady vortex fl ow with two horseshoe vortices, and steady fl ow with two vortices in the mixing channel. It has been shown that when the fl ow goes from the regime with horseshoe vortices to the fl ow conditions with two single vortices, the mixing effi ciency increases several times. It has been established that the fl ow conditions and the mixing effi ciency largely depend on the volume concentration of particles and their sizes.
   
Author:  A. S. Lobasov, A. V. Minakov, and V. Ya. Rudyak
Keywords:  hydrodynamics, numerical simulation, T-shaped micromixer, micromixer, mixing, viscosity, nanofl uid, nanoparticles, pressure drop
Page:  124