Pressure Change for Single- and Two-Phase Non-Newtonian Flows through Sudden Contraction in Rectangular Microchannel

Abstract

The flow characteristics of the single-phase liquid and the gas–liquid two-phase flows including the Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquids were experimentally investigated in a horizontal rectangular micro-channel with a sudden contraction—specifically the pressure change across the contraction. The rectangular cross-sectional dimension has Wu × Hu (width × height) = 0.99 × 0.50 mm2 on the upstream side of the contraction and Wd × Hd = 0.49 × 0.50 mm2 on the downstream side. The resulting contraction ratio, σA (=Wd/Wu), was 0.5. Air was used as the test gas (in the case of the gas–liquid two-phase flow experiment), distilled water and three kinds of aqueous solution, i.e., glycerin 25 wt%, xanthangum 0.1 wt% and polyacrylamide 0.11 wt% were used as the test liquid. The pressure distribution in the flow direction upstream and downstream of the channel was measured. The pressure change and loss at the sudden contraction were determined from the pressure distribution. In addition, the pressure change data were compared with the calculation by several correlations proposed by various researchers as well as a newly developed correlation in this study. From the comparisons, it was found that calculations by the newly developed correlations agreed well with the measured values within the error of 30%.

Keywords

• two-phase flow
• microchannel
• pressure change
• sudden contraction
• non-Newtonian fluid