CFD simulation of creeping flows in a novel printed-circuit heat exchanger

Abstract

Many mixing processes make use of micro-structures to enhance the blending effect of viscous fluids at low Reynolds numbers. These mixers can be either actively or passively driven. The current work focuses on split and recombine micro-mixers which can be employed as heat exchangers, reactors, simple mixers, or all of that combined. In this work, a comprehensive examination of different structures, along with a newly proposed one will be presented. In order to highlight the performance of the proposed mixer under creeping flow conditions, the various designs were compared against each other in terms of pressure drop and mixing quality for Reynolds numbers ranging between 0.001 up to 10. For this reason, a finite element solver, Ansys Polyflow, was used to calculate the pressure drop, Fanning friction factor, concentration profile, and segregation scales. Results show that the newly proposed mixer exhibits a superior performance by means of a better mixing quality and a lower energy consumption rate.