Experiment and simulation of mixed flows in a trapezoidal microchannel

Abstract

This paper presents experimental and numerical results of mixed electroosmotic and pressure driven flows in a trapezoidal shaped microchannel. A micro particle image velocimetry (μPIV) technique is utilized to acquire velocity profiles across the microchannel for pressure, electroosmotic and mixed electroosmotic-pressure driven flows. In mixed flow studies, both favorable and adverse pressure gradient cases are considered. Flow results obtained from the μPIV technique are compared with 3D numerical predictions, and an excellent agreement is obtained between them. In the numerical technique, the electric double layer is not resolved to avoid expensive computation, rather a slip velocity is assigned at the channel surface based on the electric field and electroosmotic mobility. This study shows that a trapezoidal microchannel provides a tapered-cosine velocity profile if there is any pressure gradient in the flow direction. This result is significantly different from that observed in rectangular microchannels. Our experimental results verify that velocity distribution in mixed flow can be decomposed into pressure and electroosmotic driven components.