Sharif Digital Repository

Catalytic decomposition of the ethyl mercaptan over an H-ZSM-5 zeolite in a newly designed microreactor was undertaken in this study. A numerically developed distributor possessing superior flow distribution was amended to 24 parallel microchannels with 64 mm length, 700 μm width, and 600 μm depth. Ethyl mercaptan complete conversion required 350 °C through the developed microreactor while in a conventional fixed-bed-reactor 400 °C was needed. Higher selectivity towards the main products of this decomposition (hydrogen sulfide and ethylene) were observed in this microreactor in comparison to that of a fixed-bed-reactor. In addition, lower selectivity towards formation of byproducts was... 

A numerical model has been developed for studying the flow and heat transfer characteristics of single phase liquid flow through a microchannel. In this work the heat transfer characteristics of pressure driven and electroosmotic flow through microchannels have been studied. The governing equations are the Poisson-Boltzmann and Navier-Stokes equations which have been solved numerically using the standard Galerkin and the Mixed 4-1 finite element methods, respectively. Finally the energy equation is solved numerically using the Stream-wise Upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG) method. Two dimensional Poisson-Boltzmann equation was first solved to find the electric potential field and net charge... 

In the present study, the thermal characteristics of electroosmotic flow of power-law fluids in rectangular microchannels in the presence of pressure gradient are investigated. The governing equations for fully developed flow under H1 thermal boundary conditions are first made dimensionless and subsequently solved through a finite difference procedure for a non-uniform grid. The influence of the major parameters on thermal features of the flow such as the temperature distribution and Nusselt number is discussed by a complete parametric study. The results reveal that the channel aspect ratio and the non-Newtonian characteristic of the fluid can affect the thermal behavior of the flow. It is... 

Some of electrokinetic-based biomicrofluidic devices work at zeta potentials that are sufficiently high for ionic size (steric) effects to show up. In the present effort, consideration is given to the steric effects on the hydrodynamics of electroosmotic flow in a rectangular microchannel. The distinction between this research and the previous ones is that we account for non-linear rheology of the fluids encountered in biomicrofluidic systems by means of the power-law viscosity model. The method of analysis consists of a finite-difference-based numerical procedure for a non-uniform distribution of grid points, which is applied to the dimensionless form of the governing equations including... 

This study investigates the influence of viscous dissipation on thermal transport characteristics of the fully developed combined pressure and electroosmotically driven flow in parallel plate microchannels subject to uniform wall heat flux. Closed form expressions are obtained for the transverse distributions of electrical potential, velocity and temperature and also for Nusselt number. From the results it is realized that the Brinkman number has a significant effect on Nusselt number. Generally speaking, to increase Brinkman number is to decrease Nusselt number. Although the magnitude of Joule heating can affect Brinkman number dependency of Nusselt number, however the general trend remains... 

Fluid flow in microchannels has some characteristics, which one of them is rarefaction effect related with gas flow. In the present work, hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed laminar forced convection heat transfer of a rarefied gas flow in two microgeometries is studied, namely, microannulus and parallel plate microchannel. The rarefaction effects are taken into consideration using first-order slip velocity and temperature jump boundary conditions. Viscous heating is also included for either the wall heating or the wall cooling case. Closed form expressions are obtained for dimensionless temperature distribution and Nusselt number. The results demonstrate that for both geometries,... 

The secondary flow of PTT fluids in rectangular cross-sectional plane of microchannels under combined effects of electroosmotic and pressure driving forces is the subject of the present study. Employing second-order central finite difference method in a very refined grid network, we investigate the effect of electrokinetic and geometric parameters on the pattern, strength and the average of the secondary flow. In this regard, we try to illustrate the deformations of recirculating vortices due to change in the dimensionless Debye–Hückel and zeta potential parameters as well as channel aspect ratio. We demonstrate that, in the presence of thick electric double layers, significant alteration... 

This paper presents an analysis of the combined electro-osmotic and pressure-driven axial flows of viscoelastic fluids in a rectangular microchannel with arbitrary aspect ratios. The rheological behavior of the fluid is described by the complete form of Phan-Thien–Tanner (PTT) model with the Gordon–Schowalter convected derivative which covers the upper convected Maxwell, Johnson–Segalman and FENE-P models. Our numerical simulation is based on the computation of 2D Poisson–Boltzmann, Cauchy momentum and PTT constitutive equations. The solution of these governing nonlinear coupled set of equations is obtained by using the second-order central finite difference method in a non-uniform grid... 

This paper presents a comprehensive 3D numerical simulation of reacting flows in micro scale dimension through centrifugal, or Lab-On-a-CD (LOCD), and pressure-driven, or Lab-On-a-Chip (LOC) devices. Three different serpentine channel configurations (rectangular, triangular and sinusoidal) are investigated. In these configurations, two chemical species enter from two inlets and according to an irreversible chemical reaction, start yielding other species. Both Newtonian and generalized Newtonian fluids are considered in the simulations and the results are compared for both LOC and LOCD devices. Besides, the effects of different parameters such as the aspect ratio of channels’ cross section,... 

We use a direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method to simulate gas heating/cooling and choked subsonic flows in micro/nanoscale channels subject to either constant wall temperature or constant/variable heat flux boundary conditions. We show the effects of applying various boundary conditions on the mass flow rate and the flow parameters. We also show that it is necessary to add a buffer zone at the end of the channel if we wish to simulate more realistic conditions at the channel outlet. We also discuss why applying equilibrium-based Maxwellian distribution on molecules coming from the channel outlet, where the flow is nonequilibrium, will not disturb the DSMC solution. The current... 

Liquid–liquid two-phase flow in microchannels is capable of boosting the heat removal rate in cooling processes. Formation of different two-phase flow patterns which affect the heat transfer rate is numerically investigated here in a T-junction containing water-oil flow. For this purpose, the finite element method (FEM)is applied to solve the unsteady two-phase Navier–Stokes equations along with the level set (LS)equation in order to capture the interface between phases. It is shown that the two-phase flow pattern in microchannels depends on the flow initial condition which causes hysteresis effect in two-phase flow. In this study, the hysteresis is observed in flow pattern and consequently... 

One important functionality of liver cells is ammonia detoxification and urea production. In this study, a numerical model of the urea cycle in hepatocytes was developed. Navier Stokes and convection equations were employed to study the process of ammonia elimination and urea production using a microfluidic channel. The concentration of urea and ammonia throughout the channel was obtained. Furthermore, the urea cycle was modelled with respect to its four main enzymes. This resulted in twelve rate equations that were solved to determine the concentration of each metabolite participating in the urea cycle. Application of results implied common disorders such as hyperammonemia types I and II... 

One important functionality of liver cells is ammonia detoxification and urea production. In this study, a numerical model of the urea cycle in hepatocytes was developed. Navier Stokes and convection equations were employed to study the process of ammonia elimination and urea production using a microfluidic channel. The concentration of urea and ammonia throughout the channel was obtained. Furthermore, the urea cycle was modelled with respect to its four main enzymes. This resulted in twelve rate equations that were solved to determine the concentration of each metabolite participating in the urea cycle. Application of results implied common disorders such as hyperammonemia types I and II... 

In this study, the effects of geometry and operating conditions upon the thermal and hydraulic performance of Finned Microchannel Heat Sink (FMCHS) were investigated. Water and aluminum were considered as fluid and solid for the computational domain (30 mm × 0.8 mm × 0.8 mm). The Microchannel (MC) was supposed to have 0.65 mm height with an aspect ratio of 0.5. CFD analysis was applied for the assessments of four-types of micro-fins (i.e., conical, pyramidal, cylindrical and cubical). In order to evaluate the effects of height, diameter, the spacing of fins and Reynolds number on the overall performance of FMCHS, central composite design at five levels was used to generate design points.... 

Heat generation from very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits increases with the advent of high-density integrated circuit technology. One of the promising techniques is liquid cooling by using microchannel heat sink. Numerical works on the microchannel heat sink in the literature are mostly two dimensional. The purpose of the present study is to develop a three-dimensional analysis procedure to investigate flow and conjugate heat transfer in the microchannel-based heat sink for electronic packaging applications. The micro-heat sink model consists of a 10 mm long silicon substrate, with rectangular microchannels, 57 μm wide and 180 μm deep, fabricated along the entire length. A finite... 

The dispersion of a neutral solute band by electrokinetic flow in polyelectrolyte layer (PEL)-grafted rectangular/slit microchannels is theoretically studied. The flow is assumed to be both steady and fully developed and a first-order irreversible reaction is considered at the wall to account for probable surface adsorption of solutes. Considering low electric potentials, analytical solutions are obtained for electric potential, fluid velocity and solute concentration. Special solutions are also obtained for the case without wall adsorption. To track the dispersion properties of the solute band, the generalized dispersion model is adopted by considering the exchange, the convection and the... 

Purpose: This paper aims to study the thermal and thermo-hydraulic performances of ferro-nanofluid flow in a three-dimensional trapezoidal microchannel heat sink (TMCHS) under uniform heat flux and magnetic fields. Design/methodology/approach: To investigate the effect of direction of Lorentz force the magnetic field has been applied: transversely in the x direction (Case I);transversely in the y direction (Case II); and parallel in the z direction (Case III). The three-dimensional governing equations with the associated boundary conditions for ferro-nanofluid flow and heat transfer have been solved by using an element-based finite volume method. The coupled algorithm has been used to solve...