The investigation of the height effect of a slit microchannel with a textured wall on its hydrodynamic drag

Abstract

The numerical investigation of the fluid flow in a slit microchannel with a textured wall was carried out. The effect of the channel height on the hydrodynamic drag coefficient, as well as on the pressure drop in such channel and the effective slip length on the wall for various Reynolds numbers, are presented in the paper. The channel length was 100 µm, and its height was varied from 25 µm to 500 µm. The Reynolds number was varied from 0.1 to 100. The main studied characteristics were compared to the similar ones obtained for a channel with normal walls (no-slip conditions). It was found that the pressure drop in such textured microchannel was lower as compared to a conventional channel for any of its heights and for any Reynolds numbers. The dependences of the relative pressure drop, effective slip length, and drag coefficient on the Reynolds number were obtained for different channel heights. The drag coefficient was described as 20/Re for the average values of the channel height. A correlation that describes the dependence of the friction factor on the Reynolds number for small and large heights of the channel was proposed. The accuracy of the proposed correlation was about 90%.