Inertio-elastic mixing in a straight microchannel with side wells
- Department of Energy Systems Research, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749 (Korea, Republic of)
- Tissue Engineering and Microfluidics Laboratory, The Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072 QLD (Australia)
Mixing remains a challenging task in microfluidic channels because of their inherently small length scale. In this work, we propose an efficient microfluidic mixer based on the chaotic vortex dynamics of a viscoelastic flow in a straight channel with side wells. When the inertia and elasticity of a dilute polymer solution are balanced (i.e., the Reynolds number Re and Weissenberg number Wi are both on the order of 10{sup 1}), chaotic vortices appear in the side wells (inertio-elastic flow instability), enhancing the mixing of adjacent fluid streams. However, there is no chaotic vortex motion in Newtonian flows for any flow rate. Efficient mixing by such an inertio-elastic instability is found to be relevant for a wide range of Re values.
- OSTI ID:
- 22489268
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 1; Other Information: (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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