Numerical investigation of the performance of 3D‐helical passive micromixer with Newtonian fluid and non‐Newtonian fluid blood

Abstract

AbstractMixing at microscales is purely governed by the diffusion mass transport phenomenon, which is a time‐consuming process requiring a prolonged length of the microchannel to obtain desired results. The present study proposes a novel three‐dimensional helical micromixer (TDHM) with a rectangular cross‐section to achieve splendid mixing performance within a short distance contrary to the simple T‐micromixer (STM). A thorough numerical investigation of mixing performance and fluid flow patterns has been conducted using the continuity, species transport, and the Navier–Stokes equations with Newtonian and non‐Newtonian fluid at a wide range of Reynolds number (0.2–320) and mass flow rate (0.00005–0.091 kg/h), respectively. Blood is selected as the non‐Newtonian fluid, and its rheological characteristics are numerically captured by implementing the Carreau–Yasuda model, whereas water is used to study mixing with the Newtonian fluid. At Re = 2, the mixing index of TDHM is 40. 5% more than that of the STM with water as the working fluid, whereas for blood, it is 34.3%, and thus, it was concluded that the TDHM gives much better performance at much less axial distance than that of the STM at all values of the Reynolds number and flow rates considered in the study. Therefore, TDHM can be utilized for various biomedical, chemical, and biochemical applications.