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Numerical Investigations of a Passive Micromixer Based on Minkowski Fractal Principle

  • Yao Chen and Xueye Chen EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 14, 2019

Abstract

This paper is mainly to study the mixing efficiency and pressure drop of the Minkowski fractal obstacle micromixers. The mixing efficiency of primary Minkowski fractal obstacle (PMFO) micromixer and secondary Minkowski fractal obstacle (SMFO) micromixer are compared at five kinds of Reynolds numbers. With the increase of obstacle height and the decrease of distance, the chaotic convection in the microchannel is enhanced. Especially at obstacle height (h) = 0.2 mm, obstacle distance (D) = 0.15 mm, and Re = 100, the vortex caused by the Minkowski fractal obstacle structure is more obvious. In addition, vortex phenomenon increases the contact area of two fluids and enhances chaotic convection. It shows that the flow direction of the fluid in the microchannel varies significantly.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Liaoning Natural Science Foundation (2019-MS-169), The Key Project of Department of Education of Liaoning Province (JZL201715401), Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program. We sincerely thank Prof. Chong Liu for his kind guidance.

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Received: 2019-05-22
Revised: 2019-09-07
Accepted: 2019-11-27
Published Online: 2019-12-14

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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