| Autor: |
Song L; School of Instrument Science and Opto-electronic Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China.; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0921, USA. xcxuan@clemson.edu., Raihan MK; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0921, USA. xcxuan@clemson.edu., Yu L; College of Controlling Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 257061, China. liandongyu@upc.edu.cn., Wu S; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0921, USA. xcxuan@clemson.edu.; College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P. R. China., Kim N; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0921, USA. xcxuan@clemson.edu., Till SR; Department of Bioengineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0905, USA., Song Y; College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P. R. China., Xuan X; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0921, USA. xcxuan@clemson.edu. |
| Abstrakt: |
The merging flow through a T-junction is relevant to sample mixing and particle manipulation in microfluidic devices. It has been extensively studied for Newtonian fluids, particularly in the high inertial regime where flow bifurcation takes place for enhanced mixing. However, the effects of fluid rheological properties on the merging flow have remained largely unexplored. We investigate here the flow of five types of polymer solutions along with water in a planar T-shaped microchannel over a wide range of flow rates for a systematic understanding of the effects of fluid shear thinning and elasticity. It is found that the merging flow near the stagnation point of the T-junction can either be vortex dominated or have unsteady streamlines, depending on the strength of elasticity and shear thinning present in the fluid. Moreover, the shear thinning effect is found to induce a symmetric unsteady flow in comparison to the asymmetric unsteady flow in the viscoelastic fluids, the latter of which exhibits greater interfacial fluctuations. |
