Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Investigation of laminar flow in microtubes with random rough surfaces

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A new approach of numerically generating a microtube with three-dimensional random surface roughness is presented. In this approach, we combined a bi-cubic Coons patch with Gaussian distributed roughness heights. Two random roughness generation methods are studied. A computational fluid dynamic solver is used to solve the 3-D N–S equations for the flow through the generated rough microtubes with D = 50 μm and L = 100 μm. The effects of the peak roughness height, H, asperities spacing in the θ direction, S θ , and Z direction, S Z , standard deviation of the Gaussian distribution, σ, arithmetical mean roughness, R a, on the Poiseuille number, Po are investigated. It is found that when H/D < 5% the Po number can still be predicted by the conventional flow theory if the mean diameter of rough microtubes, D m, is used to be the hydraulic diameter D h. When H/D = 10%, the main flow is strongly affected by the roughness at Reynolds number Re = 1,500. The Po number increases with Re and deviates from the prediction up to 11.9%. The Po number does not change a lot with S θ and S Z because D m almost keeps constant when the spacing is changed. For the rough microtubes with different R a values, the Po numbers can be almost the same, which prove that only with the R a value we can not determine the friction in the rough microtube. The mean value μ, the maximum and minimum values of the random roughness are found to be critical to determine the Po number.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bahrami M, Yovanovich MM, Culham JR (2006) Pressure drop of fully developed laminar flow in rough microtubes. ASME J Fluids Eng 128:632–637

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baviere R, Ayela F, Le Person S, Favre-Marinet M (2005) Experimental characterization of water flow through smooth rectangular microchannels. Phys Fluids 17:098105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baviere R, Gamrat G, Favre-Marinet M, Le Person S (2006) Modelling of laminar flows in rough-wall microchannels. ASME J Fluids Eng 128:734–741

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croce G, D’Agaro P (2004) Numerical analysis of roughness effect on microtube heat transfer. Superlattices Microstruct 35:601–616

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croce G, D’Agaro P (2005) Numerical simulation of roughness effect on microchannel heat transfer and pressure drop in laminar flow. J Phys D 38:1518–1530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croce G, D’Agaro P, Nonino C (2007) Three-dimensional roughness effect on microchannel heat transfer and pressure drop. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 50:5249–5259

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Duan Z, Muzychka YS (2008) Effects of corrugated roughness on developed laminar flow in microtubes. ASME J Fluids Eng 130:031102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gamrat G, Favre-Marinet M, Le Person S, Baviere R, Ayela F (2008) An experimental study and modelling of roughness effects on laminar flow in microchannels. J Fluid Mech 594:399–423

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Hu Y, Werner C, Li D (2003) Influence of three-dimensional roughness on pressure-driven flow through microchannels. ASME J Fluid Eng 125:871–879

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ji Y, Yuan K, Chung JN (2006) Numerical simulation of wall roughness on gaseous flow and heat transfer in a microchannel. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 49:1329–1339

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judy J, Maynes D, Webb BW (2002) Characterization of frictional pressure drop for liquid flows through microchannels. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 45:3477–3489

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleinstreuer C, Koo J (2004) Computational analysis of wall roughness effects for liquid flow in micro-conduits. ASME J Fluids Eng 126:1–9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohl MJ, Abdel-Khalik SI, Jeter SM, Sadowski DL (2005) An experimental investigation of microchannel flow with internal pressure measurements. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 48:1518–1533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li WL, Lin JW, Lee SC, Chen MD (2002) Effects of roughness on rarefied gas flow in long microtubes. J Micromech Microeng 12:149–156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li ZX, Du DX, Guo ZY (2003) Experimental study on flow characteristics of liquid in circular microtubes. Microscale Thermophys Eng 7:253–265

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lilly TC, Duncan JA, Nothnagel SL, Gimelshein SF, Gimelshein NE, Ketsdever AD, Wysong IJ (2007) Numerical and experimental investigation of microchannel flows with rough surfaces. Phys Fluids 19:106101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mala GM, Li D (1999) Flow characteristics of water in microtubes. Int J Heat Fluid Flow 20:142–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morini GL (2004) Single-phase convective heat transfer in microchannels: a review of experimental results. Int J Thermal Sci 43:631–651

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Papautsky I, Brazzle J, Ameel T, Frazier AB (1999) Laminar fluid behavior in microchannels using micropolar fluid theory. Sensors Actuators A 73:101–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patankar SV (1980) Numerical heat transfer and fluid flow. McGraw-Hill, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Peng XF, Peterson GP (1996) Convective heat transfer and flow friction for water flow in microchannel structures. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 39:2599–2608

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pfund D, Shekarriz A, Popescu A, Welty JR (2000) Pressure drop measurements in a microchannel. AIChE J 46:1496–1507

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phares DJ, Smedley GT (2004) A study of laminar flow of polar liquids through circular microtubes. Phys. Fluids 16:1267–1272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qin SF, Wright DK (2006) Progressive surface modelling scheme from unorganised curves. Comput Aided Des 38:1113–1122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qu W, Mala GM, Li D (2000) Pressure-driven water flows in trapezoidal silicon microchannels. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 43:353–364

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Rawool AS, Mitra SK, Kandlikar SG (2006) Numerical simulation of flow through microchannels with designed roughness. Microfluid Nanofluid 2:215–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salomon D (2006) Curves and surfaces for computer graphics. Springer, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Shen S, Xu JL, Zhou JJ, Chen Y (2006) Flow and heat transfer in microchannels with rough wall surface. Energy Convers Manage 47:1311–1325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sobhan CB, Garimella SV (2001) A comparative analysis of studies on heat transfer and fluid flow in microchannels. Microscale Thermophys Eng 5:293–311

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stroock AD, Dertinger SK, Whitesides GM, Adjari A (2002) Patterning flows using grooved surfaces. Analyt Chem 74:5306–5312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun H, Faghri M (2003) Effects of surface roughness on nitrogen flow in a microchannel using the direct simulation monte carlo method. Numer Heat Transf A 43:1–8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor JB, Carrano AL, Kandlikar SG (2006) Characterization of the effect of surface roughness and texture on fluid flow-past, present and future. Int J Therm Sci 45:962–968

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang HL, Wang Y (2007) Flow in microchannels with rough walls: flow pattern and pressure drop. J Micromech Microeng 17:586–596

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang XQ, Yap C, Mujumdar AS (2005) Effects of two-dimensional roughness in flow in microchannel. ASME J Electron Packag 127:357–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu HY, Cheng P (2003) An experimental study of convective heat transfer in silicon microchannels with different surface conditions. Int J Heat Mass Transf 46:2547–2556

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Wu P, Little WA (1983) Measurement of friction factors for flows of gases in very fine channels used for microminiature Joule–Thompson refrigerators. Cryogenics 23:273–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiong RQ, Chung JN (2007) Flow characteristics of water in straight and serpentine micro-channels with miter bends. Exp Therm Fluid Sci 31:805–812

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiong RQ, Chung JN (2008) Effects of miter bend on pressure drop and flow structure in micro-fluidic channels. Int J Heat Mass Transf 51:2914–2924

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Renqiang Xiong & Jacob N. Chung

Authors
  1. Renqiang Xiong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jacob N. Chung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Renqiang Xiong.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Xiong, R., Chung, J.N. Investigation of laminar flow in microtubes with random rough surfaces. Microfluid Nanofluid 8, 11–20 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-009-0445-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-009-0445-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation