Velocity Measurement of Flow in the Microchannel with Barriers Using Micro-PIV

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Wang, R. -J.^; | Lin, J. -Z. | Xie, H. -B.

Affiliations: Department of Mechanics, State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Trans. and Contr., Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China | School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Sci. and Tech., Hangzhou, 310012, China. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: An important application field of microfluidics is in microchemistry. Reactions of premixed reactants call for efficient designs of micromixers. This paper presents the investigations of a relatively little known micromixer embedded with barriers. The micro-resolution particle image velocimetry is used to measure the flow in the micromixer. The obtained results are in good agreement with numerical simulation. The results show that the barriers embedded in the microchannel lead to a large variation of velocity gradient, and make the fluid stretch and fold in the micromixer, which results in a substantial enhancement of the mixing efficiency.

Keywords: Microchannel, Micro-PIV, Velocity distribution, Measurement, Computation

Journal: Journal of Visualization, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 209-217, 2006