Abstract
Mixing of fluids is an extremely important process, widely used in various microfluidic devices (chemical microreactors, chemical and biological analyzers, drug delivery systems, etc.). Mixing in macroscopic flows usually occurs in the turbulent regime. However, microflows are mainly laminar, and mixing under standard conditions is caused only by molecular diffusion. Because of the extremely low values of the molecular diffusion coefficient, this manner of mixing is very ineffective. To increase the mixing velocity, it is necessary to use special devices: micromixers. For this reason, such devices are key elements of many microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This chapter describes the results of CFD simulations of the simplest micromixers. The method used to solve the Navier-Stokes equations is described in the first two sections. Sections 4.3 and 4.4 are devoted to the study of the flow and mixing regimes in Y-type micromixers at low and moderate Reynolds numbers. In the next section, the flow in T-type micromixers is studied experimentally and the obtained data is compared with those from modeling. Modeling of two-phase flow and heat transfer in micromixers is considered in the two subsequent sections. One simple active method for mixing is discussed in the last section.
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Rudyak, V.Y., Aniskin, V.M., Maslov, A.A., Minakov, A.V., Mironov, S.G. (2018). Modeling of Micromixers. In: Micro- and Nanoflows. Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications, vol 118. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75523-6_4
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