Simplified Model-based Design of Plate-fin Microdevices with Uniform Flow Distribution at High Flow Rates

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides the detailed information about flow and pressure distributions in microdevices, whose importance in the chemical process industry has increased in recent years. However, since CFD requires a considerable computational time, the use of a simple model different from CFD would be desirable to efficiently investigate the influence of design parameters on the flow and pressure distributions in microdevices. In this study, the previously proposed simple model, which is based on the predictive equation for the pressure loss due to viscous forces, is extended by taking into account inertial forces. A case study on plate-fin microdevices shows that the extended simple model can predict the flow distribution among microchannels with almost the same accuracy as CFD not only under low flow rates but also under high flow rates. In addition, another case study demonstrates that the optimal shape of manifolds of stacked/unstacked plate-fin microdevices with uniform flow distribution is efficiently derived using the extended simple model.