Investigations on fluid flow and mixing in fractal tree like biomimetic microchannel based on Murray's law

Abstract

In this novel study, nature inspired biomimetic based micromixers with asymmetric bifurcation are designed and analysed, incorporating daughter vessel ratios (rdv) of 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 based on Murray's law. By leveraging the concept of Murray's law, four micromixers were developed to address the challenges of mixing at the microscale. Achieving efficient mixing is crucial for microfluidic devices in bioengineering and chemical applications. In this work, we examined asymmetric and symmetric bifurcated micromixers across a wide range of Reynolds numbers, from 0.01 to 300. The results demonstrate that almost all the Reynolds number are better handled by the asymmetric bifurcated micromixer having rdv=0.8. The unbalanced collision of the two fluid streams in this configuration promotes enhanced mixing performance. In contrast, the symmetric micromixer, which lacks such imbalances, shows comparable mixing performance across different Reynolds numbers, except for a Reynolds number of 10. In some cases of asymmetric bifurcated micromixers, inadequate mixing occurred due to the dominance of the larger daughter vessel, impeding the participation of the smaller one in the mixing process. The research reveals that asymmetric bifurcated micromixers with rdv=0.8 are exhibit slightly higher mixing efficiency than symmetric bifurcated micromixers with rdv=1.0.