Experimental and numerical investigation of thermal chaotic mixing in a T-shaped microchannel

Abstract

In this paper, thermal chaotic mixing characteristics of two miscible fluids in a T-shaped microchannel are investigated experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, fluorescent dye Acid Yellow and Rhodamine B was employed to show the mass mixing behavior and temperature field, respectively. Power input and flow rate were studied to investigate the thermal mixing characteristics in the microchannel. The mixing efficiency increases with increasing power input, while decreases with increasing flow rate. A numerical simulation of conjugate forced convection-conduction heat and mass transfer was employed to investigate the thermal chaotic mixing processes in the T-shaped microchannel. The measured mixing efficiency versus applied voltage and flow rate were compared with numerical simulation results, which showed reasonably agreement.