Abstract
Fluid mixing plays an essential role in microscale flow systems. Here, we propose an active mixing approach which enhances the mixing of viscoelastic fluid flow in a simplified pore T-junction structure. Mixing is actively controlled by modulating the driving pressure with a sinusoidal signal at the two inlets of the T-junction. The mixing effect is numerically investigated for both Newtonian and viscoelastic fluid flows under different pressure modulation conditions. The result shows that a degree of mixing as high as 0.9 is achieved in viscoelastic fluid flows through the T-junction mixer when the phase difference between the modulated pressures at the two inlets is 180°. This modulation method can also be used in other fluid mixing devices.
Highlights
Mixing processes aim to generate a homogenous solution of multiple components in natural and engineering flows [1,2]
We modeled a T-junction chamber as a pore element to simulate the mixing effect of unstable viscoelastic fluid flows [49,50,51,52,53]
We first investigated fluid mixing in the T-junction micromixer when both inlets I1 and I2 are under the same constant pressure P0 = 3500
Summary
Mixing processes aim to generate a homogenous solution of multiple components in natural and engineering flows [1,2]. Such processes have been widely applied in chemical analysis [3,4], biological analysis [5,6], heat and mass transfer for microfluidic devices [7,8], fluid dynamic analysis in a porous medium [9,10,11,12], and numerous relevant small-scale research areas [13,14,15]. Instead of relying on inertial effects, other strategies to induce mixing, like introducing the elastic effect at microscale laminar flow, may enhance the mixing effect [20]
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