Numerical Simulation of Fluid Mixing in Micro-Mixers

Abstract

A 3-D numerical simulation is performed to study the flow dynamics and mixing characteristics between two different kinds of fluid within T-shaped micro-mixers. Water and ethanol are selected as the mixing fluids due to its application in calibrating the ultrasound imaging equipment. The present work focuses on the effects of inlet velocity and aspect ratio of the mixing channel. The Reynolds number is varied from 0.1 to 300 and the aspect ratio in the range between 0.2 and 1. The flow of interest is laminar, steady and without chemical reaction. It is found that at low Reynolds number, the stratified flow character is presented. As the velocity inlet increases, the mixing efficiency is decreased. However, for the Reynolds number greater than 100 the mixing efficiency is increased due to the buildup vortex structure. Furthermore, when increasing the Reynolds number, the pressure drop significantly increases. Thus, it is seen that both the inlet velocity and aspect ratio significantly affect the mixing efficiency and pressure drop.