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Flow through triple helical microchannel

Pravat Rajbanshi1 and Animangsu Ghatak1,2,*

  • 1Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 208016, India
  • 2Center for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 208016, India

  • *Corresponding author: aghatak@iitk.ac.in
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 3, 024201 – Published 28 February, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.3.024201

Abstract

Flow through helical tubes and channels have been examined in different contexts, for facilitating heat and mass transfer at low Reynolds number flow, for generating plug flow to minimize reactor volume for many reactions. The curvature and torsion of the helices have been shown to engender secondary flow in addition to the primary axial flow, which enhances passive in-plane mixing between different fluid streams. Most of these studies, however, involve a single spiral with circular cross-section, which in essence is symmetric. It is not known, however, how the coupled effect of asymmetry of cross-section and the curvature and torsion of channel would affect the flow profile inside such tubes or channels. In this context, we have presented here the analysis of fluid flow at low Reynolds number inside a novel triple helical channel that consists of three helical flow paths joined along their contour length forming a single channel. We have carried out both microparticle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) and 3D simulation in FLUENT of flow of a Newtonian fluid through such channels. Our analysis shows that whereas in conventional single helices, the secondary flow is characterized by two counter-rotating vortices, in the case of triple helical channels, number of such vortices increases with the helix angle. Such flow profile is expected to enhance possibility of mixing between the liquids, yet diminish the pressure drop.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 3, 024201– Published 28 February, 2018
  • Received 29 May 2017
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