Thermally fully developed electroosmotic flow of power-law fluids in a circular microchannel

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study presents a thermally fully developed electroosmotic flow of the non-Newtonian power-law fluids through a circle microchannel. A rigorous mathematic model for describing the Joule heating in an electroosmotic flow including the Poisson Boltzmann equation, the modified Navier Stokes equation and the energy equation is developed. The semi-analytical solutions of normalized velocity and temperature are derived. The velocity profile is computed by numerical integrate, and the temperature distribution is obtained by finite difference method. Results show that the velocity profiles depend greatly on the fluid behavior index n and the nondimensional electrokinetic width K. For a specified value of K, the axial velocity increases with a decrease in n, and the same trend for the effect of K on the velocity can be found for a specified value of n. Moreover, the dimensionless temperature is governed by three parameters, namely, the flow behavior index n, the nondimensional electrokinetic width K, and the dimen-sionless Joule heating parameter G. The variations of radial fluid temperature distributions with different parameters are investigated. Copyright © 2013 The Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, R.O.C.