Reduced Order Thermal Modeling of Gas-Liquid Droplet-Flow

Abstract

The paper presents a reduced order thermal model, which enables the thermal analysis of two-phase Taylorflow. Two-phase Taylor flow is the basis of many microfluidic applications such as bio-chemical microreactors where segmented zones are required to accurately characterize enzyme reactions. This new model represents a microtube with horizontally alternating and moving liquid and gas phases. The results obtained by the reduced order model match the results of a validated detailed Ansys-Fluent model with 5% accuracy. The reduced order model accounts for microcirculation and back flow. The proposed reduced order model of the two-phase Taylor-flow is investigated in situations characterized by different Reynolds numbers.