Numerical Evaluation of Flow Fields and Stresses Acting on Agglomerates Dispersed in High‐Pressure Microsystems

Abstract

AbstractDealing with calculated three‐dimensional flow fields of microchannels, investigations about straight, orifice, z‐ and y‐channels were performed. Computational fluid dynamics was used to gain the flow fields that were the basis of stationary particle tracking performed with more then 5000 seeding points. With the particle tracking, quantification and thus characterization of the acting stresses was performed. The acting stresses (tensile, shear, turbulent and compressive stress) were subsequently used for a comparison with previously conducted dispersion experiments. The dispersion of aluminum oxide agglomerates served as model system. Distributions of stresses and particle sizes could then be compared. As expected, the different stress distributions differ in broadness and level. Although the agreement between experiments and simulations is sufficient, it is still not possible to identify the predominant stress. The microchannels offering the better dispersion results provide higher stresses.