LAPSE:2019.0614
Published Article
LAPSE:2019.0614
Computational Evaluation of Mixing Performance in 3-D Swirl-Generating Passive Micromixers
Mahmut Burak Okuducu, Mustafa M. Aral
July 5, 2019
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools are used to investigate fluid flow and scalar mixing in micromixers where low molecular diffusivities yield advection dominant transport. In these applications, achieving a numerical solution is challenging. Numerical procedures used to overcome these difficulties may cause misevaluation of the mixing process. Evaluation of the mixing performance of these devices without appropriate analysis of the contribution of numerical diffusion yields over estimation of mixing performance. In this study, two- and four-inlet swirl-generating micromixers are examined for different mesh density, flow and molecular diffusivity scenarios. It is shown that mesh densities need to be high enough to reveal numerical diffusion errors in scalar transport simulations. Two-inlet micromixer design was found to produce higher numerical diffusion. In both micromixer configurations, when cell Peclet numbers were around 50 and 100 for Reynolds numbers 240 and 120, the numerical diffusion effects were tolerable. However, when large cell Peclet number scenarios were tested, it was found that the molecular diffusivity of the fluid is completely masked by false diffusion errors.
Keywords
Computational Fluid Dynamics, false diffusion, finite volume method, micromixer, numerical diffusion, swirl
Suggested Citation
Okuducu MB, Aral MM. Computational Evaluation of Mixing Performance in 3-D Swirl-Generating Passive Micromixers. (2019). LAPSE:2019.0614
Author Affiliations
Okuducu MB: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA [ORCID]
Aral MM: Department of Civil Engineering, Bartin University, 74100 Bartin, Turkey
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Journal Name
Processes
Volume
7
Issue
3
Article Number
E121
Year
2019
Publication Date
2019-02-27
Published Version
ISSN
2227-9717
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Original Submission
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PII: pr7030121, Publication Type: Journal Article
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LAPSE:2019.0614
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doi:10.3390/pr7030121
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Jul 5, 2019
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Calvin Tsay
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