The study of ethanol and water mixing modes in the t-shaped micromixers

Abstract

The study of regimes of ethanol and water mixing was carried out using numerical simulation, and the dependence of the mixing efficiency of these fluids on the Reynolds number was defined. In the course of the numerical investigation, a significant effect of the differences in the viscosities and densities of the miscible fluids on the flow regimes and the mixing efficiency of these two fluids was found. The distributions of pressure, components concentration and velocity in the micromixer were obtained. The dependence of the fluids mixing efficiency and pressure drop on the Reynolds number, as well as the map of flow and mixing regimes were determined. The nonlinear dependence of the mixture thermophysical properties on the ethanol concentration was taken into account. It was found that the last one results in much higher pressure drop comparing to the case of the water-water mixing. Moreover, an inflection was observed in the dependence of the pressure drop on the Reynolds number for the water-ethanol mixing at the transition of the flow in a micromixer to the engulfment regime.